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TRUE STORIES OF GREAT AMERICANS 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA - SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 




From the painting by Sebastiano del Piombo, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Christopher Columbus. 

" There was a man of Genoa, a dealer in printed books, trading in this land 
of Andalusia, whom they called Christopher Columbus, a man of very high 
intellect without much book-learning, who perceived by what he read and by 
his own discernment how, and in what wise, is formed this world into which 
we are born. And he made, by his wit, a map of the world; and studied it 
much; and judged that from whatever point of Europe he should sail west, 
he could not fail to meet land." 

Andres Bemaldez, a friend of Columbus. 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 



BY 



TW^MILDRED STAPLEYlSju,^ 

». T 



Whatever can be known of earth we know, 

Sneered Europe's wise men, in their snail-shells curled; 
No ! said one man in Genoa, and that No 

Out of the dark created this New World. 

— James Russell Lowell. 



Nefo gorft 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

i9 r 5 

All rights reserved 



EI /// 
•BfS 



Copyright, 1915, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1915. 



Norfoooh $wbb 

J. S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



SEP 30 1915 
©CI.A410715 



^C PREFACE 

o^" Critical research into the life of Christopher 
Columbus was unknown until about thirty years 
ago. It was then, for the first time, that authors 
began to ransack the archives of Spain and Genoa 
for material, instead of merely repeating the long- 
accepted story whose outline had been ingeniously 
sketched by the navigator himself and as ingen- 
iously filled in by his son Fernando. The many 
inaccuracies of this story had not escaped writers 
as shrewd as Washington Irving and Alexander 
Humboldt; but they, instead of subjecting dis- 
turbing misstatements to critical examination, bent 
all their talents to inventing plausible explanations 
of every discrepancy. A later panegyrist, Count 
Roselly de Lorgues, refused even to admit that ex- 
planations were needed. To counteract his very 
partisan biography, the American, Henry Harrisse, 
after scholarly study of Fernando's life of his 
father, exposed its multitudinous errors in a work 
entitled " Fernand Colomb, sa vie, ses oeuvres." 

When the four-hundredth anniversary of the great 
discovery brought its flood of Columbian literature, 



VI PREFACE 

very few authors put any new matter into their 
work. Among those who did, however, were 
several of the Italian scholars who helped com- 
pile the splendid " Raccolta Columbiana " for the 
Italian Government; Sophus Ruge, whose book 
appeared in German ; Henry Harrisse, who wrote 
in French ("Colomb devant l'Histoire"), and a 
few others whose contributions, while original, 
were much less important. Following Harrisse, 
and greatly amplifying his work, came the con- 
vincing " Etudes Critiques sur la vie de Colomb 
avant ses decouvertes," by Henry Vignaud, First 
Secretary of the American Embassy, Vice-Pres- 
ident of the Society of Americanists, Member of 
the Geographical Society, etc. 

Of all this learned and painstaking investigation 
very little has appeared in English. The text-books 
of the country most concerned in the true story of 
Columbus still teach that he alone, in the age of 
darkness, had great scientific wisdom ; that he had 
formed a theory of sailing west in order to reach 
India; and that, in his search for India in 1492, he 
accidentally came upon the outlying islands of 
North America. It is to show how erroneous and 
inconsistent this old legend is, and properly and 
sympathetically to relate Columbus to his period 
and its influences, that the present story is offered 
to young Americans. 



PREFACE vil 

In the new version here set forth there is 
nothing not already known and recognized by stu- 
dents of the subject. In following Vignaud's re- 
vival of the now generally accepted pilot story, it 
offers a far more logical motive for the great 
voyage than the search for Asiatic India, a 
country which, by papal order, was to belong to 
Portugal, no matter who might discover it. Indeed, 
India was never mentioned in connection with 
Columbus until after his return, and then it meant 
" The Indies of the Antilles." The story of the 
unknown pilot circulated throughout Portugal and 
Spain during the end of the fifteenth century and 
all of the sixteenth. Columbus for obvious reasons 
never mentions it. His son Fernando, for the 
same reasons, refers to it but scantily ; but Las 
Casas, the first historian of the new world, who 
heard the story from the lips of Columbus's com- 
panions, devotes a chapter to it. Although this 
history was not printed till three hundred and fifty 
years after it was written, many Spanish and 
Portuguese books published during the sixteenth 
century likewise gave the pilot story at length. 
Thus it can be traced through a century of his- 
tories and biographies. It is known to have stim- 
ulated a Madeiran captain and several navigators 
in Portugal to ask royal permission to sail west. 
That Columbus himself should not have divulged 



viii PREFACE 

his more intimate familiarity with it is natural ; 
yet certain it is that he had received instructions 
for reaching an island in the far Atlantic ; equally 
certain that he placed unbounded confidence in 
these instructions, and therefore remained persis- 
tent in face of many discouragements. Further- 
more, it appears very probable that when he 
advocated his cause for the last time before the 
Spanish monarchs, he won their sanction because 
he showed them material proofs instead of present- 
ing scientific theories which had previously failed 
to convince them. 

Las Casas, writing in San Domingo, says, " Co- 
lumbus brought with him a map on which was 
marked these Indies (of Antilla) and their islands, 
the most prominent being Espanola." Again he 
says, after telling the story of the pilot, " Columbus 
went out to discover that which he did discover and 
to find that which he did find as certain of it as if 
it were something he had kept in his own room 
under his own key." To accept the story does not 
dim Columbus's courage as a navigator. The un- 
known pilot found Espanola without effort, in- 
voluntarily, even ; Columbus found it as the result 
of years of effort and tenacity and voluntary risk. 

MILDRED STAPLEY 
New York City, 
' August, 1915. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

Columbus befriended by Royalty i 

CHAPTER II 
The Youth of Columbus 10 

CHAPTER III 
"Lands in the West" 22 

CHAPTER IV 
The Sojourn in Madeira 33 

CHAPTER V 
A Season of Waiting 42 

CHAPTER VI 
A Ray of Hope 53 

CHAPTER VII 

Isabella Decides 66 

ix 



x CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VIII 

PACK 

Off at Last ! 72 

CHAPTER IX 
"Land! Land!" 83 

CHAPTER X 
Natives of the New Land 95 

CHAPTER XI 
The Return in the Nina 106 

CHAPTER XII 
Days of Triumph 120 

CHAPTER XIII 
Preparing for a Second Voyage . . . .130 

CHAPTER XIV 
Finding New Islands 139 

CHAPTER XV 
On a Sea of Troubles 154 

CHAPTER XVI 
The Third Voyage 163 

CHAPTER XVII 
A Return in Disgrace 177 



CONTENTS xi 

CHAPTER XVIII 

PAGE 

Public Sympathy 186 

CHAPTER XIX 
The Last Voyage 201 

CHAPTER XX 
The Courage of Diego Mendez . . . .215 

CHAPTER XXI 
"Into Port 1 ' 229 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Christopher Columbus .... Frontispiece 

FACING FAGE 

The Genoa Home in text n 

La RAbida 44 

The Surrender of Granada 70 

The Three Caravels of Columbus . in text 77 

Christopher Columbus. Portrait in the Colum- 
bian Library, Sevilla 122 

A Famous Prophecy 180 

The House in Valladolid in which Christopher 

Columbus Died 230 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

CHAPTER I 

Columbus befriended by Royalty 

Spain, as every one knows, was the country 
behind the discovery of America. Few people 
know, however, what an important part the beauti- 
ful city of Granada played in that famous event. 
It was in October, 1492, that Columbus first set 
foot on the New World and claimed it for Spain. 
In January of that same year another territory had 
been added to that same crown; for the brave 
soldier-sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, had 
conquered the Moorish kingdom of Granada in the 
south and made it part of their own country. 

Nearly eight hundred years before, the dark- 
skinned Moors had come over from Africa and 
invaded the European peninsula which lies closest 
to the Straits of Gibraltar, and the people of that 
peninsula had been battling fiercely ever since to 
drive them back to where they came from. True, 

B I 



2 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

the Moor had brought Arabian art and learning with 
him, but he had brought also the Mohammedan 
religion, and that was intolerable not only to the 
Spaniards but to all Europeans. No Christian 
country could brook the thought of this Asiatic 
creed flourishing on her soil, so Spain soon set to 
work to get rid of it. 

This war between the two religions began in the 
north near the Bay of Biscay whither the Chris- 
tians were finally pushed by the invaders. Each 
century saw the Moors driven a little farther south 
toward the Mediterranean, until Granada, where 
the lovely Sierra Nevadas rise, was the last strong- 
hold left them. Small wonder, then, that when 
Granada was finally taken the Spanish nation was 
supremely happy. Small wonder that they held a 
magnificent f&te in their newly-won city in the 
"Snowy Mountains." The vanquished Moorish 
king rode down from his mountain citadel and 
handed its keys to Ferdinand and Isabella. Bells 
pealed, banners waved, and the people cheered 
wildly as their victorious sovereigns rode by. 

And yet, so we are told by a writer who was 
present, in the midst of all this rejoicing one man 
stood aside, sad and solitary. While all the others 
felt that their uttermost desire had been granted 
in acquiring the Moorish kingdom, he knew that 



COLUMBUS BEFRIENDED BY ROYALTY 3 

he could present them with a far greater territory 
than Granada if only they would give him the 
chance. What were these olive and orange groves 
beside the tropic fertility of the shores he longed 
to reach, and which he would have reached long 
ere this, he told himself regretfully, if only they had 
helped him ! What was the Christianizing of the 
few Moors who remained in Spain compared with 
the Christianizing of all the undiscovered heathen 
across the Atlantic ! 

And so on that eventful January 2, 1492, when a 
whole city was delirious with joy, 

"There was crying in Granada 

when the sun was going down, 
Some calling on the Trinity — 

some calling on Mahoun. 
Here passed away the Koran — there 

in the Cross was borne — 
And here was heard the Christian bell — 

and there the Moorish horn." 

On that great day of jubilee one man, a stranger, 
but as devout a Christian as any of the conquerors, 
stood apart downcast, melancholy, saddened by 
years of fruitless waiting for a few ships. That 
man was Christopher Columbus. 

When you know that Columbus was present by 
special invitation, that a friend of the queen's had 



4 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

secured him the promise of an interview with full 
consideration of his plans just as soon as the city 
surrendered, you may think he should have looked 
happy and hopeful with the rest; but the fact 
was, that for nearly seven years the monarchs had 
been holding out promises, only to put him off, 
until his faith in princes had dwindled to almost 
nothing. 

But, as it happened, they really meant it this 
time. Moreover, it is only fair to Ferdinand and 
Isabella to believe that they had always meant it, 
but they had been so preoccupied with the enor- 
mous task of welding poor Spain, long harassed by 
misrule and war, into a prosperous nation, that 
they had neither time nor money for outside 
ventures. Certain it is that when Granada was 
really conquered and they had their first respite 
from worry, the man who was known at court as 
the "mad Genoese" was summoned to expound 
his plan of sailing far out into the west where he 
was certain of finding new lands. 

Where this meeting took place is not known posi- 
tively, but probably it was in the palace called 
the Alhambra, a marvelous monument of Arabian 
art which may be visited to-day. Columbus stood 
long in the exquisite audience chamber, pleading 
and arguing fervently ; then he came out dejected, 



COLUMBUS BEFRIENDED BY ROYALTY 5 

mounted his mule, and rode wearily away from 
Spain's new city ; for Spain, after listening atten- 
tively to his proposals, had most emphatically 
refused to aid him. It was surely a sorry reward, 
you will say, for his six years' waiting. And yet 
the man's courage was not crushed ; he started 
off for France, to try his luck with the French 
king. 

This is what had happened at the Spanish court. 
The great navigator talked clearly and convincingly 
about the earth being round instead of flat as most 
people still supposed ; and how, since Europe, 
Asia, and Africa covered about six sevenths of the 
globe's surface, and the Atlantic Ocean the re- 
maining seventh (here he quoted the prophet 
Esdras), 1 any one by sailing due west must surely 
come to land. So clear was his own vision of this 
land that he almost saw it as he spoke; and his 
eloquence made his hearers almost see it too. 
One after another they nodded their approval, 

1 " Upon the third day thou didst command that the waters 
should be gathered in the seventh part of the earth. Six parts 
hast thou dried up and kept them to the intent that of these 
some being planted of God and tilled might serve thee. . . . 
Upon the fifth day thou saidst unto the seventh part where the 
waters were gathered that it should bring forth living creatures, 
fowls and fishes, and so it came to pass." 

Apocrypha, 2 Esdras vi. 42, 47. 



6 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

and approval had never before been won when he 
addressed a Spanish audience. But when Arch- 
bishop Talavera, who was spokesman for King 
Ferdinand, asked the would-be discoverer what re- 
ward he expected in case his voyage was success- 
ful, the answer was so unexpected that nearly 
every man in the room was indignant, 

This answer is worth looking into carefully if 
one is to understand why the Spanish nobility 
thought that Columbus drove a hard bargain. 
He demanded of their Highnesses, 

First : That he should be made Admiral over all 
seas and territories he might discover, the office to 
continue for life and to descend to his heirs forever, 
with all its dignities and salaries. 

Second: That he should be made Viceroy and 
Governor- General of all new territories, and should 
name the officers under him. 

Third: That he should have one tenth part of 
all merchandise, pearls, precious stones, gold, silver, 
or spices acquired by trade, discovery, or any other 
method. 

Fourth: That if any controversy or lawsuit 
should arise over such goods, he or his officer 
should be the only judge in the matter. 

Fifth: That in fitting out all expeditions for 
trade or discovery he should be allowed to furnish 



COLUMBUS BEFRIENDED BY ROYALTY 7 

one eighth of the cost and receive one eighth of 
the profit. 

On these conditions and no others would Chris- 
topher Columbus undertake his perilous journey 
into unknown seas; and the grandees of Spain 
walked indignantly away from him. 

"Lord High Admiral!" murmured one. "An 
office second only to royalty ! This foreigner 
demands promotion over us who have been fight- 
ing and draining our veins and our purses for 
Spain this many a year!" " Governor- General 
with power to select his own deputies!" murmured 
another. " Why, he would be monarch absolute ! 
What proof has he ever given that he knows how 
to govern!" "One tenth of all goods acquired 
by trade or any other method" protested still 
another. " What other method has he in mind? — 
robbery, piracy, murder, forsooth? And then, 
when complaints of his 'other method' are made, 
he alone is to judge the case! A sorry state of 
justice, indeed!" 

Now, when you see this from the Spaniards' 
point of view, can you not understand their indig- 
nation? Yet Columbus, too, had cause for indig- 
nation. True, these soldiers of Spain had risked 
much, but on land, and aided by powerful troops. 
He was offering to go with a few men on a small 



8 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

ship across a vast unexplored sea ; and that 
seemed to him a far greater undertaking than a 
campaign against the Moors. His position was 
much like that of the modern inventor who resents 
having the greater part of the profits of his inven- 
tion given to those who promote it. Columbus's 
friends, the few men who had encouraged him and 
believed in him ever since he came to Spain, begged 
him to accept less, but he was inflexible. He was 
prepared to make the biggest journey man had 
ever dreamed of, and not one iota less would he 
take for it. But no such rewards would Talavera 
promise, and thus ended the interview for which 
Columbus had waited nearly seven years! 

And so he rode away from the lovely Moorish 
city, weary and dejected, yet hoping for better 
treatment when he should lay his plans before the 
French king. His ride took him across the fertile 
Vega (plain) of Granada and into a narrow moun- 
tain pass where the bleak Elvira Range towers 
three thousand feet above the road. But smiling 
plain and frowning mountain were alike to the 
brooding traveler. He noticed neither; nor, 
when he started across the ancient stone bridge 
of Pifios, did he notice that horsemen were gallop- 
ing after him. They were Queen Isabella's mes- 
sengers sent to bid the bold navigator return. 



COLUMBUS BEFRIENDED BY ROYALTY o 

They overtook him in the middle of the bridge, 
and then and there his trip to France ended. 

The queen, they told him, would accept his 
terms unconditionally. And Isabella kept her 
word. The next time Christopher Columbus 
rode forth from Granada it was not with bowed 
head and heavy heart, but with his whole soul 
rejoicing. We may be sure that he turned back 
for a last affectionate look at the lovely mountain 
city; for it had given him what historians now 
call " the most important paper that ever sovereign 
put pen to," — a royal order for the long-desired 
ships and men with which to discover " lands in 
the west." 



CHAPTER II 

The Youth of Columbus 

Having seen how that great event in Spanish 
history, the fall of Granada, set the date for the 
discovery of America, let us see how it was that a 
humble Italian sailor came to be present among 
all those noble Spanish soldiers and statesmen. 
Let us see why he had brought to Spain the idea of 
a round world, when most Spaniards still believed 
in a flat one ; and why his round world was per- 
fectly safe to travel over, even to its farthest point, 
while their flat one was edged with monsters so 
terrible that no man had ever sought their evil 
acquaintance. 

The amount of really reliable information which 
we possess concerning the childhood of Christopher 
Columbus could be written in a few lines. We do 
not know accurately the date of his birth, though 
it was probably 145 1. Sixteen Italian cities have 
claimed him as a native ; and of these Genoa 
in northern Italy offers the best proofs. Papers 
still exist showing that his father owned a little 



THE YOUTH OF COLUMBUS 



II 



house there. Men who have 
studied the life of Columbus, 
and who have written much 
about him, say that he was 
born in the province, not the 
city, of Genoa ; but Colum- 
bus himself says in his diary 
that he was a native of 
Genoa city ; and present-day 
Genoese have even identified 
the very street where he was 
born and where he played as 
a child — the Vico Dritto di 
Ponticello. In the wall of 
the house in which he is be- 
lieved to have lived is placed 
an iron tablet containing an 
inscription in Latin. It tells 
us that " no house is more to 
be honored than this, in which 
Christopher Columbus spent 
his boyhood and his early 
youth." 

More important than the 
exact spot of his birth would 
be a knowledge of the sort of 

From " The Story of Columbus " 

childhood he passed and of * ^XpfewT^cZTnV' 

the forces that molded his The Genoa Home 




12 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

character. To learn this we must look into the 
condition of civilization, and particularly of Italian 
civilization, in the middle sixteenth century. 

Columbus was born in a brilliant period known 
now as the Renaissance — a French word mean- 
ing re-birth — which marks the beginning of 
modern history. It followed a long, painful period 
known to us as the Dark Ages, or Middle Ages, 
namely, the period between ancient and modern 
times. In the Middle Ages humanity was very 
ignorant, hampered by all sorts of evil supersti- 
tions; while the daily life of the people was 
miserable and without comforts, lacking many 
things which we consider necessities. Yet even 
in those far-away days things were improving, 
because man has always felt the desire to make his 
lot better ; and the constant effort of these people 
of the Middle Ages led to that beautiful awakening 
which we call the Renaissance. 

One of the first glimmers of this new life may 
be said to have come from the Crusades. The 
Europeans who had journeyed down into Asia to 
drive the Mohammedans, or Saracens, out of the 
Holy Land, came back impressed with the fact that 
these infidel Asiatics had more refinement and 
courtesy than Christian Europe knew. The re- 
turning Crusaders introduced some of this refine- 



THE YOUTH OF COLUMBUS 13 

merit into their own countries, and it caused 
people to abandon some of their rude ways. Of 
course there were many more influences working 
toward the great awakening, principally the growth 
of commerce. All Europe became alive with the 
desire for progress; many new things were in- 
vented, many old ones perfected ; and before the 
Renaissance ended it had given us some wonderful 
discoveries and achievements — paper and print- 
ing ; the mariner's compass ; an understanding 
of the solar system; oil painting, music, and 
literature ; and lastly, the New World. 

Why, then, if it brought all these arts and inven- 
tions and discoveries, do we not call it the birth, 
instead of the re-birth? Because many of the 
beautiful elements of the Renaissance, such as art, 
science, and poetry, enjoyment of life, freedom to 
investigate and study nature — all these had existed 
in the days of ancient Greece and Rome ; but after 
the fall of Roman civilization it took the barbarian 
peoples of other portions of Europe a long, long 
time to grow civilized, and to establish some sort 
of order out of their jumbled affairs; and while 
they were slowly learning lessons of government 
and nationality, the culture of the antique world 
was lost sight of. When it was found again, 
when young men wished to learn Latin and Greek 



14 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

so that they could read the long-neglected books 
and poetry of the ancients, human life was made 
much richer and happier. 

This desire came first to the people of Italy. 
It was very natural, for ancient Rome, where 
great learning had last flourished, was in Italy; 
furthermore, the Italian peninsula, jutting out into 
the much-navigated Mediterranean, was full of 
seaports, to which came vessels with the merchan- 
dise, the language, and the legends of other coun- 
tries ; and when we learn of other countries, we 
broaden our ideas. 

Add to Italy's favorable geographical position 
the fact that her people were unusually quick of 
intellect, and were gifted with great imagination, 
and you will see how natural it was that the Renais- 
sance should have started there. Also, you will 
see why the great discoverer was a very natural 
product of Italy and its Renaissance. 

Genoa, like other large Italian cities, was teem- 
ing with this new spirit of investigation and adven- 
ture when Cristoforo Colombo (in his native land 
his name was pronounced Cristoforo Colom'bo) 
was born there or first came there to live. 
Long before, Genoa had taken an active part in 
the Crusades, and every Genoese child knew its 



THE YOUTH OF COLUMBUS 15 

story. It had carried on victorious wars with 
other Italian seaports. It had an enormous com- 
merce. It had grown rich, it was so full of marble 
palaces and churches, and it had such a glorious 
history, that its own people loved to call it Genova 
la Superba (Superb Genoa). 

Although Cristoforo's family were humble people 
of little or no education, the lad must have had, 
or made, many opportunities for acquiring knowl- 
edge. Probably he made them ; for, as a boy in 
those days generally followed his father's trade, 
Cristoforo must have spent a good deal of time in 
"combing" wool; that is, in making the tangled 
raw wool ready for weaving. Perhaps he was sent 
to school, the school supported by the " Weavers' 
Guild." But between working at home and going 
to school, he evidently made many little trips down 
to the busy wharves. 

Was there ever any spot more fascinating than 
the wharves in olden days — in that far-off time 
when there were no books to read, and when a 
boy's only chance of hearing about other countries 
was to go and talk to the crew of each vessel that 
came into port ? The men to whom our lad talked 
had sailed the whole length and breadth of the 
biggest body of explored water, the Mediterranean. 
Some had gone farther east, into the Black Sea; 



1 6 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

and still others — bravest of all — had passed 
beyond the Straits of Gibraltar and out on to the 
great unknown ocean. It was to these last, we 
may be sure, that the adventurous boy listened 
most eagerly. 

Those hardy sailors were the best possible pro- 
fessors for a boy who intended to follow the sea. 
They were, doubtless, practical men who never 
talked much about the sea-monsters and other 
nonsense that many landsmen believed in; nor 
did they talk of the world being flat, with a jump- 
ing-off place where the sun set. That belief was 
probably cherished by men of book-learning only, 
who lived in convents and who never risked their 
lives on the waves. Good men these monks were, 
and we are grateful to them for keeping alive a 
little spark of learning during those long, rude 
Middle Ages ; but their ideas about the uni- 
verse were not to be compared in accuracy with 
the ideas of the practical mariners to whom young 
Cristoforo talked on the gay, lively wharves of 
Genova la Superba. 

Many years after Columbus's death, his son 
Fernando wrote that his father had studied geog- 
raphy (which was then called cosmogony) at the 
University of Pavia. Columbus himself never re- 
ferred to Pavia nor to any other school ; nor was 



THE YOUTH OF COLUMBUS 17 

it likely that poor parents could afford to send the 
eldest of five children to spend a year at a far-off 
university. Certain it is that he never went there 
after his seafaring life began, for from then on his 
doings are quite clearly known ; so we must admit 
that while he may have had some teaching in child- 
hood, what little knowledge he possessed of geog- 
raphy and science were self-taught in later years. 
The belief in a sphere-world was already very 
ancient, but people who accepted it were generally 
pronounced either mad or wicked. Long before, in 
the Greek and Roman days, certain teachers had 
believed it without being called mad or wicked. 
As far back as the fourth century B.C. a philosopher 
named Pythag'oras had written that the world 
was round. Later Plato, and next Aristotle, two 
very learned Greeks, did the same ; and still later, 
the Romans taught it. But Greece and Rome fell ; 
and during the Dark Ages, when the Greek and 
Roman ideas were lost sight of, most people took 
it for granted that the world was flat. After many 
centuries the " sphere " idea was resurrected and 
talked about by a few landsmen, and believed in by 
many practical seamen ; and it is quite possible 
that the young Cristoforo had learned of the 
theory of a sphere-world from Genoese navigators 
even before he went to sea. Wherever the idea 



18 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

originated is insignificant compared with the fact 
that, of all the men who held the same belief, 
Columbus alone had the superb courage to sail 
forth and prove it true. 

Columbus, writing bits of autobiography later, 
says that he took to the sea at fourteen. If true, 
he did not remain a seafarer constantly, for in 
1472-73 he was again helping his father in the 
weaving or wool-combing business in Genoa. 
Until he started on his famous voyage, Columbus 
never kept a journal, and in his journal we find 
very little about those early days in Genoa. While 
mentioning in this journal a trip made when he was 
fourteen, Columbus neglects to state that he did 
not definitely give up his father's trade to become 
a sailor until 1475. Meanwhile he had worked 
as clerk in a Genoese bookshop. We know he 
must have turned this last opportunity to good 
account. Printing was still a very young art, 
but a few books had already found their way to 
Genoa, and the young clerk must have pored over 
them eagerly and tried to decipher the Latin in 
which they were printed. 

At any rate, it is certain that in 1474 or 1475 
Cristoforo hired out as an ordinary sailor on a 
Mediterranean ship going to Chios, an island east 
of Greece. In 1476 we find him among the sailors 



THE YOUTH OF COLUMBUS 19 

on some galleys bound for England and attacked 
by pirates off the Portuguese Cape St. Vincent. 

About Columbus's connection with these pirates 
much romance has been written, — so much, in- 
deed, that the simple truth appears tame by com- 
parison. One of these two pirates was named 
Colombo, a name common enough in Italy and 
France. Both pirates were of noble birth, but 
very desperate characters, who terrorized the whole 
Mediterranean, and even preyed or- ships along 
the Atlantic coast. Columbus's son, Fernando, in 
writing about his father, foolishly pretended that 
the discoverer and the noble-born corsairs were of 
the same family ; but the truth is, one of the cor- 
sairs was French and the other Greek ; they were 
not Italians at all. Fernando further says that his 
father was sailing under them when the battle 
off Cape St. Vincent was fought; that when the 
vessels caught fire, his father clung to a piece of 
wreckage and was washed ashore. Thus does 
Fernando explain the advent of Columbus into 
Portugal. But all this took place years before 
Fernando was born. 

What really appears to have happened is that 
Columbus was in much more respectable, though 
less aristocratic, company. It was not on the side 
of the pirates that he was fighting, but on the side 



20 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

of the shipowner under whom he had hired, and 
whose merchandise he was bound to protect, for 
the Genoese galleys were bound for England for 
trading purposes. Some of the galleys were de- 
stroyed by the lawless Colombo, but our Colombo 
appears to have been on one that escaped and put 
back into Cadiz, in southern Spain, from which 
it later proceeded to England, stopping first at 
Lisbon. This is a less picturesque version, per- 
haps, than Fernando's, but certainly it shows 
Columbus in a more favorable light. Late the 
next year, 1477, or early in 1478, Cristoforo went 
back to Lisbon with a view to making it his home. 

Besides this battle with corsairs, Columbus had 
many and varied experiences during his sea trips, 
not gentle experiences either. Even on the huge, 
palatial steamships of to-day the details of the 
common seaman's life are harsh and rough ; and 
we may be sure that on the tiny, rudely furnished, 
poorly equipped sailboats of the fifteenth century 
it was a thousand times harsher and rougher. 
Then, too, the work to be done in and around the 
Mediterranean was no occupation for children ; 
it quickly turned lads into men. Carrying cargo 
was the least of a shipowner's business; he was 
more often hiring out vessels and crews to warring 



THE YOUTH OF COLUMBUS 21 

kings, to Portuguese who carried on a slave trade, 
or to fight pirates, the dread of the Mediterranean. 
Slaves rowed the Mediterranean galleys, and in the 
bow stood a man with a long lash to whip the 
slaves into subjection. With all these matters did 
Christopher Columbus become acquainted in the 
course of time, for they were everyday matters in 
the maritime life of the fifteenth century ; but stern 
though such experiences were, they must have 
developed great personal courage in Christopher, a 
quality he could have none too much of if he was 
to lead unwilling, frightened sailors across the wide 
unknown sea. 



CHAPTER in 

"Lands in the West" 

By moving from Genoa to Lisbon, Columbus 
found himself in a much better atmosphere for 
developing into a discoverer. The genius of a 
discoverer lies in the fact that he yearns for the 
unknown ; and Portugal faced the Atlantic Ocean, 
that immense unexplored " Sea of Darkness" as it 
was then called. Italy, as we know, was the greater 
country, but it faced the Mediterranean, and every 
nook and corner of the Mediterranean were known 
and explored. 

For any man thirsting to learn more about 
geography and exploration, there was no more 
vital spot in Europe than Lisbon in the fifteenth 
century. Why it was so is such an interesting 
story that it must be told. We have read how 
zealously the Spaniards had been striving for 
centuries to drive out the Moors, whom they 
considered the arch enemies of Christian Europe. 
Portugal, being equally near to Africa, was also 
overrun by Moors, and for ages the Portuguese 



"LANDS IN THE WEST" 23 

had been at war with them, finally vanquishing 
them early in Columbus's century. A wise Portu- 
guese prince then decided on a scheme for breaking 
their power utterly; and that was to wrest from 
them their enormous trade with Arabia and 
India ; for their trade made their wealth and their 
wealth was their power. 

This trade was known as the Indian trade, and 
was carried on by overland caravans up through 
Asia and Northern Africa to the Mediterranean 
coasts. The goods brought into Europe by this 
means — gold, pearls, spices, rare woods — 
naturally set Europe to thinking that the lands 
producing them must be the most favored part of 
the world, and " the Indies" stood for wealth of all 
kinds. No one knew precisely where " the Indies" 
lay ; no one knew about the Indian Ocean or the 
shape of Southern Africa; "the Indies" was 
simply an indefinite term for the rich and myste- 
rious regions from which the caravans came. 

The old maps of the fifteenth century show three 
different countries of this name — Far India, be- 
yond the Ganges River ; Middle India, between the 
Ganges and the Indus ; and Lesser India, including 
both sides of the Red Sea. On the African side of 
the Red Sea was located the legendary kingdom of 
a great monarch known as Prester John. Prester 



24 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

is a shortening of Presbyter, for this John was a 
Christian priest as well as a king. Ever since the 
twelfth century there had been stories circulated 
through Europe about the enormously wealthy 
monarch who ruled over a vast number of Chris- 
tians " in the Indies." At first Prester John's 
domain was supposed to be in Asia ; later the leg- 
ends shifted it over to Africa, Abyssinia probably ; 
and it was with this division of " India" that the 
Portuguese Prince Henry hoped to establish a 
trade ; not, at first, by rounding Africa and sailing 
up its east coast to Abyssinia, but by merely 
cruising down the coast of Western Africa till 
Abyssinia's Atlantic shores were reached ; for so 
vague was the geography of that far-away day that 
Abyssinia was supposed to stretch from Ethiopia 
to the Atlantic. "If," reasoned Prince Henry, 
" my sailors can feel their way down Africa till 
they come to Prester John's territory, not only 
could our nation secure the rich trade which now 
goes to the Moors, but we could form a treaty 
with the African Christians and ask them to come 
to Europe and help us should the Moors ever again 
advance against us." This plan was approved by 
Pope Nicholas V., who sanctioned Prince Henry's 
enterprise in the hope of " bringing the people of 
India, who are reputed to honor Christ, to the aid 



"LANDS IN THE WEST" 25 

of European Christians against Saracens and other 
enemies." This projected exploration of the Afri- 
can coast by " Henry the Navigator" was the whole 
foundation for the mistaken statements that Christo- 
pher Columbus was trying to find " a sea route to 
India." Prince Henry was trying to find a sea 
route to an African India which he supposed lay 
about where Guinea lies ; and as for Christopher, he 
never undertook to find either this African India, nor 
the true Asiatic India ; he only promised the Spanish 
sovereigns that he would find " lands in the west." 

Having straightened out the long-lived confusion 
about " the short route to India," let us see how 
Prince Henry went to work. Northern or Medi- 
terranean Africa was well known to Europe, but 
not the Atlantic coast. There was an ancient be- 
lief that ships could not enter tropic seas because 
the intensely hot sun drew up all the water and 
left only the slimy ooze of the bottom of the ocean. 
Cape Nun, of Morocco, was the most southerly 
point of Africa yet reached ; and about it there 
was a discouraging saying, 

"Who pass Cape Nun 
Must turn again or else be gone." 

Prince Henry, who was called the " Protector of 
Studies in Portugal," did not believe that rhyme, 



26 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

and determined to show how foolish and untrue it 
was. His first step was to establish an observatory 
and a school for navigation at Cape St. Vincent, the 
most westerly point of Europe and the most south- 
westerly point of Portugal. To this observatory 
the prince invited the most learned astronomers, 
geographers, and instrument-makers then living, 
that they might all work together with him ; and 
from the little fishing village of Sagres, close to 
his great observatory, he sent out sailors who, 
according to an old writer, "were well taught in 
all rules which sailors ought to know, and provided 
with the best instruments for navigation." 

These expeditions began fifty years before 
Columbus came to Lisbon. Most of them sailed 
south ; but there had always been legends of lands 
in the west, so westward some of them sailed and 
found the Azores and the Madeira Islands. These 
last had been known to English navigators more 
than a century before, but as England sent no 
people to occupy and claim them, Portugal took 
possession of them. 

How the ownership of all newly-found portions 
of the globe came to be determined is worth look- 
ing into. Ever since the time of the Crusades it 
was recognized as right that any European Chris- 



"LANDS IN THE WEST" 27 

tian ruler might seize the land and property of any 
Asiatic infidel. If two or three Christian rulers 
united to seize Mohammedan territory and were 
victorious, the Pope was to decide which one should 
own it. But the Crusades were unsuccessful, and 
so the question of ownership of land outside of 
Europe never came up until Prince Henry sent 
out his discoverers. Then, in order to make 
Portugal's claim very sure to whatever she might 
find, Pope Martin V. issued an order that all land 
which might be discovered between Cape Bojador 
(on the most southerly point of the Morocco 
coast) and the Indies should belong to Portugal, 
no matter what navigator discovered it. This 
was in 1479. Naturally, when his turn came to 
navigate, Columbus would not be interested in 
taking the Portuguese path, since, by papal order, 
he would have to turn over to Portugal whatever 
he might discover. 

But to return to Prince Henry. His successes 
began in 1422 when a Portuguese captain pushed 
past the high promontory of Cape Nun and did 
not "turn again" till he had gone far enough 
to see that the Southern Atlantic was as full of 
water as the Northern. After that these brave 
people kept sailing farther and farther south, down 



28 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

past Guinea and the mouth of the Congo, always 
asking for the India of Prester John ; but the 
savage blacks at whose coasts they touched had 
never heard of it. Finally Bartholomew Dias 
rounded the Cape of Good Hope and proved that 
the African India had no Atlantic coast ; and he 
also proved that there existed a southern hemi- 
sphere of great possibilities. Then the question 
of reaching Asiatic India by sea loomed large 
in the Portuguese mind. Vasco da Gama, follow- 
ing Dias around the Cape of Good Hope, crossed 
the Indian Ocean and at last cast anchor in 
the dazzlingly rich city of Calcutta, the real 
India. 

This last did not happen, however, till 1498, 
six years after Columbus discovered America. 
Long before this time the good Prince Henry had 
died ; and though he did not live to learn of this 
sea route to India, he died knowing that the 
Madeiras and the Azores existed out in the open 
sea, while Africa stretched far south of the Equator. 
His devotion to navigation had imbued his coun- 
trymen with great enthusiasm, and placed little 
Portugal at the head of European nations in mari- 
time matters. Not only did she discover how to 
sail to India, but to Siam, Java, China, and Japan 
as well. 



"LANDS IN THE WEST" 29 

From Prince Henry's day, Lisbon became the 
city where all men interested in the fascinating 
study of geography wished to dwell, in order that 
they might exchange ideas with navigators and 
get employment under the Crown. We can 
readily understand why Lisbon was a magnet to 
the ambitious Christopher Columbus ; and we 
may feel sure that had the brave, intelligent 
"Protector of Studies in Portugal" been still 
alive when Columbus formed his plan for dis- 
covery, the intrepid discoverer would have been 
spared those weary years of waiting. He would 
have found America ten years sooner, and it would 
have been the Portuguese, and not the Spanish, 
flag that he would have carried westward to the 
New World. 

Our young Genoese is supposed to have sailed 
to Iceland and even farther into the Polar regions, 
probably after continuing that trip to Bristol 
which the pirates interrupted off Cape St. Vincent. 
Many writers consider that it was in Iceland where 
he heard rumors of "land in the west." If the Ice- 
land trip really was made, Christopher may indeed 
have heard the story ; for long before, Icelanders, 
and Norsemen also, had discovered America. 

These discoveries, as we now believe, took place 
in the far-away eleventh century ; but they made 



30 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

no impression on Europeans of that time, because 
Iceland and Scandinavia were not in touch with 
other European countries. Civilization then had 
the Mediterranean for its center, and no one in 
Southern Europe ever heard of what the Icelanders 
or the Norsemen were doing. But these northern 
peoples did not entirely lose sight of their discov- 
eries, for they sang about them from century to 
century in quaint and beautiful ballads called 
sagas. It was not until after Columbus revealed 
the west to European eyes that these sagas were 
published ; nevertheless, it is not improbable that, 
if Columbus landed in Iceland, some inhabitant 
who knew the story of the far western country 
told it to him. He never refers to it in his writ- 
ings, however, and one cannot help thinking that, 
if it really was true, he would have mentioned it, 
at least to those whom he was trying to persuade 
to help him. The only reference he ever made to 
the northern voyage is when writing his journal 
in 1492, where he states, 

"I have seen all the Levant (where the sun 
rises) ; and the Ponent (where the sun sets) ; I 
have seen what is called The Northern Way, and 
England ; and I have sailed to Guinea." 

Columbus's elder brother, Bartholomew, who 
was a map-maker and a serious student of geog- 



"LANDS IN THE WEST" 31 

raphy, also settled in Lisbon. The two either 
opened a book-and-map shop, or at least they 
worked in one at odd times, Christopher acting 
as a draftsman ; for, as he himself quaintly ex- 
pressed it, "God had endowed me with ingenuity 
and manual skill in designing spheres, and inscrib- 
ing upon them in the proper places cities, rivers 
and mountains, isles and ports." He appears to 
have tried to earn a little money by commerce as 
well as by map-making. We have no exact 
record of this, but it is thought that he borrowed 
capital for trading purposes from rich Genoese 
merchants settled in Lisbon, and lost it. This 
we conclude because, in his will, he ordered certain 
sums to be paid to these merchants, without men- 
tioning why. That he tried to add to the small 
profits of map-making by trading with sea captains 
is not surprising. We can only be sorry that he 
did not make a handsome profit out of his ventures, 
enough for himself and for those who lent him 
capital. 

We have mentioned that all the men who had 
a scientific interest in navigation tried to get to 
Lisbon. Among those whom Columbus may 
have met there, was the great German cosmog- 
rapher from Nuremburg, Martin Behaim. Mar- 
tin helped to improve the old-fashioned astrolabe, 



32 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

an instrument for taking the altitude of the sun; 
more important still, toward the end of 1492 he 
made the first globe, and indicated on it how one 
might sail west and reach Asiatic India. This is 
the first record of that idea which was later attrib- 
uted to Columbus, but which Columbus himself, 
until his return from his first voyage of discovery, 
never even mentioned. Whether he and Martin 
Behaim talked together about the route to India 
we shall never know. Probably they did not ; 
for when Christopher importuned later for ships, 
it was only for the purpose of discovering "lands 
in the west," and not for finding a short route to 
India. Columbus, though he knew how to draw 
maps and design spheres, really possessed but 
little scientific knowledge. Intuition, plus tenac- 
ity, always did more for him than science ; and so 
it is likely that he talked more with sailors than 
with scientists. While he may have known the 
learned Behaim, certain it is that, from his earliest 
days in Lisbon, he sought the society of men who 
had been out to the Azores or to Madeira ; men 
who told him the legends, plentiful enough on 
these islands, of lands still farther out toward the 
setting sun, that no one had yet ventured to visit. 



CHAPTER IV 

The Sojourn in Madeira 

Columbus had not been very long in Lisbon 
when he met, at church, a girl named Felipa Mofiez 
Perestrello. Felipa was of noble birth ; Christo- 
pher was not ; but he was handsome — tall, 
fair-haired, dignified, — and full of earnestness 
in his views of life. Felipa consented to marry 
him. 

Felipa must have been a most interesting com- 
panion for a man who loved voyaging, for she had 
been born in the Madeiras. Her father, now dead, 
had been appointed governor, by Prince Henry, of 
a little island called Porto Santo, and Felipa and 
her mother (with whom the young couple went to 
live) had many a tale to tell about that far outpost 
of the Atlantic. This is probably what set Chris- 
topher yearning for the sea; and so, about 1479, 
he and his wife and her mother, Sefiora Perestrello, 
all sailed off for Porto Santo. The Sefiora must 
have liked her new son-in-law's enthusiasm for 
the sea, for she gave him the charts and instru- 

D 33 



34 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

ments that had belonged to her husband ; but as 
Governor Perestrello had never been a navigator, 
these could not have been either very numerous or 
very helpful. 

From Porto Santo, Columbus made a voyage 
to Guinea and back ; and after that he and his 
family went to live on the larger island of Madeira. 
There, according to many men who knew Columbus 
well, the following event happened. 

One day a storm-tossed little caravel, holding 
four sick, battered, Portuguese sailors and a Span- 
ish pilot, all of them little more than living skele- 
tons, was blown on the Madeira shore near where 
Christopher dwelt. Their tale was a harrowing 
one. They had started, they said, months before 
from the Canaries for the Madeiras, but had been 
blown far, far, far, to the west; and then, when 
the wind quieted down so that they could try to 
get back, their ship became disabled and their 
food gave out. Starvation and exposure had 
nearly finished them ; four, in fact, died within a 
day or two ; but the Spanish pilot, the one who 
had kept his strength long enough to steer toward 
Madeira, lived longer. The kind-hearted Chris- 
topher, who was devoured with curiosity, had had 
the poor fellow carried to his own home. He and 
Felipa did all they could for him, but their nursing 



THE SOJOURN IN MADEIRA 35 

could not restore him. The pilot, seeing that he 
would never be able to make another voyage, 
added a last detail to the story he first told ; namely, 
that his ship had actually visited a new land hun- 
dreds of miles out in the Atlantic Ocean ! A proof 
of Christopher's own suspicions ! Can you not 
see him, the evening after his talk with the pilot, 
standing at sunset on some high point of Madeira, 
and looking wistfully out over the western water, 
saying, "I must sail out there and find those 
lands. I know I can do it!" So he went back 
to Lisbon to try. 

Certain it is that Columbus's absorbing interest 
in the unknown, mysterious west dates from his 
returning to Lisbon to live. Not only did he talk 
earnestly with men who had interests in the Atlan- 
tic isles, he studied all the available geographical 
works. Before the time came to leave for Spain he 
had read the wonderful " Relation" (or Narrative) 
of Marco Polo ; the " Imago Mundi" (Image of the 
World) by Cardinal d'Ailly ; the " Historia Rerum" 
(History of Things) by Pope Pius II. ; and he had 
studied Ptolemy's " Geography." From this small 
library came all the scientific knowledge, true and 
false, that Christopher ever had. From these he 
built up whatever theories of the universe he may 
have laid before the sovereigns of Spain. 



36 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Marco Polo, the Venetian, had traveled, as 
every one knows, across Asia to Cathay (China) 
in the thirteenth century and had visited the Great 
Khan or Emperor. On his return he wrote the 
" Relation," a most exaggerated but fascinating 
account of the wealth of that remote land and of 
Cipango (Japan) also, which the Chinese had told 
him about. The " Imago Mundi" was certainly 
better reading for him, because less exaggerated ; 
whatever myths and fables it contained, it was not 
the sort of book to turn a young man's thoughts 
toward amassing wealth. Instead, its author had 
gathered together all that was known or seriously 
argued concerning this world. On this curious 
old volume Christopher pinned his entire faith. 
It became his bedside companion ; and his copy 
of it, full of notes in his own handwriting and 
in that of his brother Bartholomew as well, may 
be seen to-day in the Columbian Library in 
Sevilla. 

For centuries it has been asserted by men who 
have written about Columbus that the most im- 
portant event during his Lisbon days was his cor- 
respondence with a learned astronomer named 
Paolo Toscanelli. Columbus, they argue, having 
formed the plan of sailing west to discover a route 



THE SOJOURN IN MADEIRA 37 

to the Indies (which Columbus never thought of 
doing at that early day), wrote to ask Toscanelli's 
advice, and the wise Florentine approved most 
heartily. It appears from the astronomer's letter 
that he never dreamed, any more than did Co- 
lumbus, that a whole continent lay far off in the 
unexplored western ocean. He supposed the world 
to be much smaller than it really is, with the ocean 
occupying only a seventh of it; and that if one 
sailed three or four thousand miles west, he would 
surely come to the islands of Cipango (pronounced 
in Italian Tchi-pango), or Japan, lying off the 
mainland of Cathay or China. Toscanelli, like 
Columbus, had read all about the Far East in 
Marco Polo's book, and was convinced that if the 
Venetian had reached it by going east overland, 
some one else might reach it by going west oversea. 
Accordingly he encouraged the aspiring young 
explorer. He told Columbus, furthermore, that 
he had talked with an ambassador from the Far 
East who came to the court of Pope Eugenius 
IV. " I was often in the Ambassador's company," 
he wrote, " and he told me of the immense rivers 
in his country, and of two hundred cities with 
marble bridges upon the banks of a single river." 
Of Cipango he wrote, " This island contains such 
an abundance of precious stones and metals that 



38 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

the temples and royal palacesfare covered with 
plates of gold I " 

The Toscanelli letter is dated 1474, and begins : 
" To Christopher Columbus, Paul the Physician, 
health : I see thy noble and great desire to go there 
where grow the spices." But the strange thing is 
that Columbus never made use of it in pleading be- 
fore kings, nor did he even mention Toscanelli and 
the route to India. Neither in all his writings can 
the name of Toscanelli be found ; and it was not 
till after Columbus's death (and Toscanelli's), when 
others began to write history, that the document 
was made public. Most Columbian scholars there- 
fore doubt its genuineness, and think it was not 
written by Toscanelli in 1474, but by some one in 
Lisbon long after Columbus had actually made his 
discovery. 

In any case, the pilot's story was a far more 
likely factor in sending Christopher west. Nor is 
it to his discredit that he was willing to risk his 
life on a dying sailor's wild, improbable tale, rather 
than on an astronomer's carefully worked out theory. 
Whether our navigator had theories or not is of little 
consequence compared to the fact that he had bold- 
ness, tenacity, and the spirit of adventure. 

" The King of Portugal refused with blindness to 
second me in my projects of maritime discovery." 



THE SOJOURN IN MADEIRA 39 

So Christopher declares in his Journal; but in 
spite of his way of putting it, King John did not 
blindly refuse to listen to him. Let us see what, 
according to two Portuguese historians, really 
happened when, on his return from Madeira about 
1483, he solicited aid. 

Columbus told the monarch, who himself knew 
a great deal about navigation, but who was not 
nearly as intelligent as his uncle, Prince Henry, 
how the persistent rumors he had heard at Madeira 
concerning land in the west made him eager to 
undertake a western voyage of discovery ; and how, 
if only the king would give him a fleet and some 
sailors, he would lead them out until they found 
" lands." The king, who was really not so blind 
as Columbus thought, did not refuse, but said he 
must first submit the idea to his Council for 
Geographical Affairs. This Council consisted of 
two Jewish doctors and a bishop. The doctors 
were noted students of geography, yet they de- 
clared the scheme to be impossible, and Columbus 
to be a " visionary." 

That such an answer could have been made by 
men whose nation had been so bold on the sea 
for fifty years past is at first glance surprising. 
But one must remember that the Portuguese had 
been merely feeling their way along Africa. They 



40 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

had perfect confidence in a southern route that 
hugged the shore. South was safe; but west 
beyond the Azores, where there was no shore to 
hug, was quite another matter ; they felt that their 
own navigators, in finding the Azores, had reached 
the ultimate limits in that direction. Their 
disagreement may not have been caused by fear, 
but by realizing that the instruments and ships of 
the day were not sufficient for such hazardous 
undertakings. This fact Columbus realized too, 
and hence his greater bravery. Besides, argued 
the Portuguese, would there be any profit at the 
end of the enterprise? They felt sure that at the 
end of their own southern expeditions lay those 
same rich (but vague) Indies which Arab merchants 
reached by going overland southeast through Asia 
or south through Egypt; it was all "the Indies" 
to them, and their navigators were sure to come in 
touch with it. But who could possibly predict 
what would be reached far off in the vast west ! 
Why, they wondered, was this Italian so sure of 
himself (for the story of the shipwrecked pilot 
had not yet come to their ears) ; and why, they 
further wondered, should he ask such large rewards 
for finding islands that would probably be nothing 
more than rocky points in the ocean, like the 
Azores. No, they concluded, the Italian was a 



THE SOJOURN IN MADEIRA 41 

"visionary," and the Council for Geographical 
Affairs advised the king accordingly. 

Seeing that nothing was to be gained by remaining 
in Portugal, and having become involved soon after 
in some political trouble, Columbus decided to 
leave for Spain, and offer to Ferdinand and Isabella 
the western lands which King John of Portugal had 
refused. 



CHAPTER V 

A Season of Waiting 

Columbus by this time was about thirty-five. 
His reddish-brown hair had turned white. He had 
no money ; on the contrary, he was in debt. His 
good wife Felipa had died, and he had to find 
some place where he could leave his little son 
Diego while he went to court to ask for ships. 
Felipa had a sister married to a Spaniard and 
living in Huelva. With this lady Columbus de- 
cided to leave the boy. 

They left Lisbon by ship, it is supposed; but 
instead of taking a ship bound direct for Huelva, 
Christopher picked out one bound for Palos, a port 
not far from Huelva; moreover, on landing, in- 
stead of conducting the child at once to his aunt, 
he trudged a few miles back of Palos with him to 
a lonely old convent among the sand dunes, called 
La Rabida (pronounced Ra'bida) . About his haste 
to reach this spot Christopher had not breathed a 
word in the town where he had just landed ; in 
fact, he always remained silent about it ; but it 

42 



A SEASON OF WAITING 43 

appears that he went there to question a Portuguese 
monk named Marchena whom he had known in 
Portugal. This monk was an excellent cartog- 
rapher, or map-maker, and Christopher wished to 
talk with him about the western lands. 

This good monk may have already heard in 
Portugal about the pilot. At any rate he was much 
interested in his visitor, and ordered that the 
monks should feed the hungry little Diego while 
he and Diego's father held council in one of the 
cool little cells of the convent. 

" Tarry with us a while, Senor," said the monk, 
"and I will send for the learned Doctor Fernandez 
of Palos, who has read much science, and for the 
brave Captain Martin Alonzo Pinzon, who has made 
many voyages. Let us hear what they have to say 
about the possibility of finding this island which 
you believe to lie off in the western sea." 

So a messenger was sent back over the dusty 
road to Palos, and soon Doctor Garcia Fernandez, 
mounted on his mule, appeared at the gate of La 
Rabida. The monks showed him in and made him 
acquainted with their visitor. The doctor was at 
once impressed and saw that this was no ordinary 
traveler. White hair surmounting a highly in- 
telligent face, dreaming eyes, inspired voice — this 
combination did not come every day to La Rabida. 



44 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

He knew that the foreigner would prove interesting, 
and he proceeded to explain that his friend Martin 
Alonzo Pinzon could not come, as he was at that 
moment away on a voyage. 

"But you must remain with us till he comes 
back," declared the monk Marchena, "for no man 
in all Spain is more experienced in matters of 
navigation. You must tell him about this island 
you propose to discover." And Fernandez, when 
he heard Christopher's tale, said the same thing. 
Thus it was that little Diego never got to his aunt 
in Huelva ; for by the time Martin Alonzo had re- 
turned, the monks had grown so fond of the child, 
and were so impressed with the great future that 
lay before his inspired father, that they offered to 
keep him and educate him free of all expense. This 
offer Columbus was glad to accept. 

The man whose return Columbus awaited in the 
hospitable monastery of La Rabida belonged to 
the most influential family of Palos. For genera- 
tions the Pinzons had all been sailor-merchants and 
had amassed considerable wealth. The head of the 
family still sailed the seas ; and as, in Palos and in 
near-by Huelva, many Portuguese lived who boasted 
about the discoveries their country had made, his 
interest had been much piqued by their talk. He 



A SEASON OF WAITING 45 

was educated and open-minded. Moreover, he was 
considered the best navigator of all who sailed from 
that important maritime region of Huelva. 

When Pinzon got back to Palos, he learned that 
the monks of La Rabida had been eagerly awaiting 
him, in order that he might meet their interesting 
visitor. Off he hastened ; and from the moment 
he and Columbus met, each recognized in the 
other a master spirit. Whether or not Columbus 
and Marchena told Pinzon at that time the story 
of the pilot is not known ; but certainly he heard it 
later. We only know that they talked of lands to 
be discovered in the west, and that Pinzon offered 
to go on the expedition as captain in case Columbus 
should be successful in getting permission and help 
from the Spanish sovereigns. 

From La Rabida Columbus went to the large 
and important city of Sevilla, carrying letters of 
introduction from the monk Marchena. In Sevilla 
he had an interview with the powerful Duke of 
Medina Sidonia who was much interested in his 
project at first, but soon gave it up. Next he met 
the Duke of Medina Celi, who was even more 
powerful, and with whom Columbus spent a year 
while waiting for a favorable opportunity to lay 
his plans before the court. When the proper 



46 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

moment came, the duke acquainted the queen with 
Columbus's matter, and she in answer invited the 
would-be explorer to come to Cordova. This was 
in January, i486. 

It has often been stated that Columbus, while 
still in Lisbon, had applied both to Genoa and to 
Venice for aid. This is no longer believed, as no 
proofs can be found. There is, however, some 
reason for believing that he sent his brother 
Bartholomew to England and France to urge the 
matter. Columbus himself nowhere gives the 
details of these missions, though he does say, in a 
letter to the Spanish monarchs, "In order to serve 
your Highnesses, I listened neither to England nor 
France, whose princes wrote me letters." Another 
bit of evidence regarding the French appeal is a 
letter, written after the discovery, by the Duke 
of Medina Celi to Cardinal Mendoza. Cardinal 
Mendoza was King Ferdinand's prime minister, 
and the duke, having befriended Columbus soon 
after his arrival from Portugal, and again some 
years afterward, asked a favor of the cardinal, 
saying, "You must remember that I prevented 
Columbus from going into the service of France 
and held him here in Spain." 

Perhaps some scholar may some day unearth the 
correspondence between Columbus and the French 



A SEASON OF WAITING 47 

king ; but at present we have only the hints given 
above, along with the fact that Columbus, when 
finally dismissed from Granada in 1492, started for 
France. 

In describing Columbus's suit in Spain the names 
of great churchmen — cardinals, bishops, priests, 
monks, — will frequently appear, and it will be 
well to understand why his fate so often lay in 
their hands. During the Dark Ages the only 
people who received any education were the clergy. 
Their education gave them great power over the 
ignorant ; and even after the dawn of the Renais- 
sance, when other classes began to demand educa- 
tion, the clergy were still looked up to as possessing 
the bulk of the world's wisdom. 

Thus every king's counselors were mostly 
churchmen. If those ecclesiastics had always tried 
to deserve their reputation for wisdom, it might 
have been a good arrangement. Unfortunately, 
some were narrow-minded and gave their king bad 
advice ; happily, some were wise and good as well 
as powerful, and a few of this sort in Spain helped 
Christopher Columbus to make his dreams come true. 

Many writers speak bitterly of the way in which 
King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella temporized 
with Columbus. It was hard, indeed, for a man 



48 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

burning up with a great and glorious plan to be 
kept so long from executing it ; but a glance into 
Spanish affairs at the moment when the man 
brought his idea into Spain will show that its 
rulers were not so culpable after all. We have 
already seen how long and how vigorously the 
sovereigns were pushing the Moorish war ; but 
this was not their only anxiety. Spain's finances, 
owing to the misrule of previous kings, were in a 
very bad way. To get money, taxes were raised ; 
and high taxes, as we know, always cause dissatis- 
faction among the people. Then, too, a death- 
dealing pestilence swept over the land and claimed 
thousands of victims. 

This is only a partial account of Spain's woes 
at the time when the man with the idea arrived ; 
but it shows clearly how the king and queen may 
have been too busy and too worried to give much 
time or money to a "dreaming foreigner." They 
gave him just enough of each to keep up his hopes 
and prevent him from going elsewhere. Columbus 
himself must have realized that he had not come 
at a fortunate time, and that there was nothing 
to do but to wait patiently. 

Spain in those days had no capital. Both 
Ferdinand and Isabella led the army and estab- 



A SEASON OF WAITING 49 

lished themselves in whatever city was most 
convenient for their military operations. At the 
time they heard, through the Duke of Medina 
Celi, of the Genoese navigator who had a great 
plan for discovery to unfold to them, they were 
in the* ancient city of Cordova; but, even after 
requesting that Columbus be sent to Cordova, 
they could not give much heed to him because 
they had to hasten to the Moorish frontier and 
open their campaign against the kingdom of 
Granada. After a time they returned to Cordova, 
but only to start immediately for the north, where 
one of their nobles had raised a rebellion. During 
these months, all that Columbus could do to further 
his cause was to make the acquaintance of a favor- 
ite of the king named Alonzo de Quintanilla. This 
gentleman proved friendly, and invited Columbus 
to accompany him to the city of Salamanca. The 
court was to pass the winter there, and Quintanilla 
hoped to secure an audience for his new friend. 

He was successful. Columbus spoke to King 
Ferdinand, and spoke eloquently. He himself has 
described his enthusiasm by saying he felt "kindled 
with fire from on high." This fire, unfortunately, 
did not spread to his listener. The man to whom 
Columbus spoke was not given to warm impulses. 
On the contrary, he was cold and shrewd. He 

E 



50 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

never decided matters hastily ; least of all a matter 
that involved expenses. We do not know exactly 
what answer Ferdinand made to the impassioned 
pleader, but we do know that he first sought the 
opinions of the learned men of Salamanca. 

Concerning these opinions there are contradic- 
tory reports, just as there are about all of Colum- 
bus's actions in Spain. Some say that the ecclesi- 
astics (who were also professors at the renowned 
university in Salamanca) and a few scientific men 
besides met in the Convent of San Esteban (St. 
Stephen) to discuss Columbus's project. To-day 
the monks in San Esteban show tourists the very 
room in which the meeting was held ; yet there is 
not an atom of real proof that any such meeting 
took place there. We only know that an informal 
gathering was called, and that whoever the pro- 
fessors and churchmen were who listened to Colum- 
bus's story, they were mostly narrow-minded ; 
they had no imagination. Instead of trying to 
see the bigness and the wonder of his belief, they 
looked at Columbus suspiciously and said that 
they could find no mention of a round world in 
the Bible, and it was heresy to believe anything 
that could not be found in the Bible. Others, 
believing in the sphere, still could not find in 
Christopher's reference to the rumors current in 



A SEASON OF WAITING 51 

Madeira sufficient reason for giving him ships to 
test the truth of those rumors. 

Certainly the majority looked upon him as 
either a heretic or a foolish dreamer, or perhaps a 
bold adventurer trying to get money from their 
king; but happily a few believed in him, argued 
on his side, and became his steadfast friends. The 
most noted of these was the learned monk, Diego 
de Deza. He was intelligent, broad-minded, and 
generous; and though he was not able to prevail 
upon the other professors nor upon the king, still 
it must have helped Columbus's cause to have 
such a distinguished churchman for his friend. 

In the spring of 1487 the monarchs left Sala- 
manca without giving a definite answer to the 
anxious man. They were about to begin a cam- 
paign against the Moors in Malaga, down on the 
Mediterranean coast, and thither Columbus fol- 
lowed them. Once, when there was a lull in the 
siege, he was summoned to the royal tent. Again 
no definite answer was given, but again he made a 
powerful friend. This time it was the Marchioness 
of Moya, the queen's dearest companion ; and 
when, soon after, this lady was wounded by a 
Moorish assassin who mistook her for the queen, 
we may be sure that Isabella's affection deep- 
ened ; and that, in gratitude, she listened readily 



52 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

when the kind-hearted marchioness praised the 
Genoese navigator. 

From the surrender of Malaga until that of 
Granada, the last Moorish city, Ferdinand and 
Isabella were ever busy, — sometimes in the south 
with their armies, sometimes attending to general 
government affairs in various cities of the north. 
All this time they were having hard work to raise 
war funds. It would not be strange, therefore, if 
they felt unable to spend money on Columbus's 
doubtful scheme, or if they told him that it would 
be impossible further to consider his project until 
the Moorish war should terminate. 



CHAPTER VI 
A Ray of Hope 

Until the Moorish war should end ! 

Imagine the disappointment of this man who 
had been trying for years to prove that lands lay 
far across the Atlantic, yet no one cared enough 
about his grand idea to give him a few ships ! 
Who could tell when the Moorish war would end ? 
And who could tell whether it would end in favor 
of the Spanish? Why, he must have asked him- 
self, should he, no longer young, wait to see ? 

Accordingly, in the spring of 1488 he wrote, so 
he says, to the king of Portugal asking permission 
to N return. King John not only invited him to 
come back, but promised that no one should be 
allowed to bring any lawsuit against him. This 
refers, perhaps, to the sums Columbus had bor- 
rowed for trading purposes and had lost. About 
the same time came a message from the English 
king, whom Bartholomew Columbus had visited. 
Neither letter contained any definite promise of 
assistance ; but the mere fact that other countries 

53 



54 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

were interested caused Ferdinand and Isabella 
some anxiety. They must have considered how 
humiliating it would be for them to turn away 
this opportunity that was knocking at their door, 
and send it to rival kingdoms. They decided, 
war or no war, to have all the learned men of 
Spain come together and listen to the Italian's 
project. If a majority of these wise men thought 
the voyage might prove profitable, then they 
would immediately give Columbus the necessary 
ships and men. Accordingly they issued three 
important orders : one, bidding Columbus to 
appear before a learned council in Sevilla ; another, 
commanding every town through which he might 
pass in reaching Sevilla to give him hospitality ; 
a third, commanding Sevilla itself to give him 
lodging and to treat him as if he were a govern- 
ment official. All this must have looked so prom- 
ising, so much in earnest, that Columbus willingly 
put off his return to Portugal. In spite of the 
narrow-mindedness he had encountered in the 
learned men of Salamanca, he started off, full of 
hope, to talk to the same sort of learned men of 
Sevilla. But it all came to naught. For some 
reason now unknown the meeting was postponed ; 
and the summer campaign starting soon after, 
the government had other matters to consider. 



A RAY OF HOPE 55 

In August of that year, 1488, Columbus's younger 
son Fernando, whose mother was a Spanish woman, 
was born in Cordova, and soon after the father 
appears to have returned to Lisbon. 

Here again we do not know what happened ; 
the only proof we have that he made the journey 
at all is a memorandum written by him in his copy 
of the ''Imago Mundi." It is dated Lisbon, 
December, 1488, and states that Bartholomew 
Dias had just rounded southern Africa — the 
Cape of Good Hope. Whether Columbus made 
another fruitless appeal to Portugal we shall 
never know. We only know that, instead of 
going from Lisbon to England, he went back to 
procrastinating Spain. That he came back by 
King Ferdinand's summons is almost positive, for 
another royal decree was issued for every city 
through which he passed to furnish him with 
board and lodging at the king's expense. This 
was in May, 1489, which means that another 
summer campaign was in progress when Columbus 
entered Spain. The monarchs who took the 
trouble to bring him back had no time for his 
project after he reached Spain. 

For almost two years, that is, till the. end of 
149 1, the waiting navigator again resided with the 



56 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Duke of Medina Celi who still had faith in his 
proposed explorations. 

The duke was by far the most powerful friend 
Columbus had made in Spain, for he possessed 
and governed a large principality that was practi- 
cally independent of the Crown. He lived in 
royal splendor and held court like a king. When 
Spain went to war, the duke could fit out a whole 
army from his own dominions and send them forth 
under his own banner to fight for the king. Colum- 
bus must have felt greatly encouraged over re- 
taining the good will of such a mighty personage ; 
indeed, the duke himself was quite rich enough to 
give the necessary ships. 

But, somehow, he failed to do so ; probably 
because he feared that the sovereigns might object 
to having a private individual steal away the glory 
they themselves had no time to reap. Our navi- 
gator, again disheartened because the years were 
slipping away, announced to his host that he would 
start for France. At this the duke wrote to the 
queen personally, telling her what a pity it would 
be to let France have the profits of such a discovery. 
Also, he wrote a very kind letter of commendation 
for Columbus to take to her Majesty, a letter which 
is still preserved ; but even with this powerful 
backing Columbus got no "help, as we shall see. 



A RAY OF HOPE 57 

The monarchs, having conquered most of the 
Moorish cities, were preparing to lay siege to the 
last stronghold, Granada. Columbus craved an 
answer from them before the siege began. They 
requested Bishop Talavera to immediately obtain 
opinions from the wisest men he could reach, and 
report their verdict. The majority of wise men, 
it is sad to relate, again pronounced Columbus's 
enterprise vain and impossible ; the Atlantic 
Ocean could not be crossed; but the minority, 
headed by the wise monk, Diego de Deza of Sala- 
manca, who was now tutor to young Prince John, 
upheld it vigorously, and told the queen that the 
plan was perfectly feasible. The poor sovereigns, 
who were neither scientists nor churchmen, but 
merely hard-working soldiers and governors, did 
not know which view to take. Again they evaded 
a positive answer, making the war their excuse; 
and again Columbus, indignant at their evasion, 
determined to go to France. 

Right here we come to one of the most pictur- 
esque incidents in this checkered life, — an incident 
that takes us again to that hot, dusty, southwestern 
corner where we saw him first enter Spain with the 
child trudging by his side. 

Columbus appears to have decided that, before 



58 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

starting for France, it would be well to remove 
Diego from La Rabida and place him with the 
baby step-brother Fernando in Cordova, so that 
Fernando's mother might bring up the two lads 
together. With this end in view, he again pre- 
sented himself (and again afoot, for he was far too 
poor to ride a mule) before the gate of the low, 
white monastery near Palos. The first time he 
had rung that bell it was with hope in his heart ; 
this time he was dejected. He had no hope, so 
far as Spain was concerned. The good monk 
Marchena had certainly done his best, but it had 
come to naught. There was nothing left but to 
thank them all and get to France as soon as possi- 
ble. So mused Christopher sadly as he waited 
for the gate to open. 

But Christopher did not know that there had 
recently come to La Rabida a new prior or chief 
monk. This prior, whose name was Juan Perez 
(pronounced Hwan Pair'eth), possessed, fortu- 
nately, an imagination and a certain amount of in- 
fluence at court. Having imagination, he loved an 
occasional bit of news from the outside world. 
Therefore, when he heard a stranger talking to the 
monks in the outer courtyard, he listened. 

"That man is no ordinary beggar asking alms," 
said the sympathetic prior to himself. "He seems 



A RAY OF HOPE 59 

to be a foreigner, and he is talking about the king 
and queen, and the conquest of Malaga ; and now 
he is asking for our little pupil Diego — why, it 
is the child's father ! — I must go and speak to 
him myself!" and out he went and joined the 
group in the courtyard. 

And so it came about that as soon as Christopher 
had greeted his boy, now grown into a tall, intelli- 
gent lad of ten or eleven, he repaired to the cell of 
Juan Perez and told all that had happened to him 
during his various sojourns at court. At last (for 
Christopher was very wordy) he came to his final 
dismissal. "They say the Atlantic cannot be 
crossed," he cried desperately, "but I say it can! 
Aye, and I shall do it, too!" 

Never had such stirring words rung out in that 
peaceful little cell. The prior himself caught their 
electricity and became quite excited. Although 
the monk Marchena appears to have left the con- 
vent before Christopher's second coming, the prior 
had learned all about the Italian navigator from 
the other brothers. The story had interested him 
greatly, for he too had studied geography; and 
now, as the Italian stood before him, declaring 
that he would find those western lands, the prior 
realized that it would be a pity for Spain to allow 
the man to carry his idea off to France. 



60 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

"Linger yet a few days with us, senor," he urged, 
" that I may learn from Pinzon and Doctor Fernan- 
dez what they think of your scheme. If they still 
regard it favorably, I myself will go to the queen, in 
your behalf." 

Perhaps just here the senor shook his head sadly 
and said, "No, no; it is not worth the trouble. 
The queen is interested only in the Moorish war. 
Not even the great Diego de Deza, nor the 
Marchioness of Moya, nor the Duke of Medina 
Celi, have been able to prevail on her." 

And perhaps just here the good prior smiled 
knowingly and replied modestly, "I once had the 
honor of being Queen Isabella's confessor, and had 
great influence with her. If " — and here he 
leaned close to Christopher and whispered some- 
thing — "I think I might persuade her." 

We did not catch that whispered sentence quite 
clearly, but we believe it to have been, "If I tell 
her the story of the shipwrecked pilot." Up to 
this time Christopher had not referred to it in his 
pleadings, for fear, perhaps, that it would sound too 
improbable; but down in this corner of Spain, 
where all men followed the sea, the story had got 
about (whether through the monk Marchena, or 
through sailors who had been to Madeira, is uncer- 
tain) and nearly everybody believed it. So now 



A RAY OF HOPE 61 

Juan Perez appears to have persuaded Christopher 
to use it as a last argument. This we may reason- 
ably conclude, since the Rabida monk's intercession 
with the queen succeeded where all previous efforts 
had failed. 

Martin Alonzo Pinzon, it turns out, is in Rome ; 
so Christopher has to wait until his return. An- 
other delay, but he is well used to that. Mean- 
while he turns it to profit by making trips to Palos, 
Huelva, Moguer, and other ports where he can ques- 
tion sailors newly returned from the west. For half 
a dozen years he has been out of touch with mariners 
and their doings, and these trips must have given 
him deep pleasure. For this is his true place, — 
among men who have known the rough hardships 
of seafaring life, and not among grandees and 
courtiers. He breathes in the salt air and chats 
with every man he meets. A pilot of Palos, Pedro 
de Velasco by name, tells him that he too once 
thought of going into the west, but after sailing 
one hundred and fifty leagues southwest of Fayal 
(one of the Azores), and seeing nothing but banks 
of seaweed, he turned north and then northwest, 
only to again turn back ; but he is sure, he adds, 
that if only he had kept on he would have found 
land. 



62 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Christopher, also, as we know, is quite sure of 
it, and says so. Another day, in a seaport near 
Cadiz, he meets another pilot who tells him that 
he sailed far west from the Irish coast and saw 
the shores of Tartary ! Christopher probably 
has some doubts of this, so he merely shrugs his 
shoulders and walks off. He is impatient for 
Martin Alonzo Pinzon to return. It is disturbing 
to learn that other men have been getting nearer 
and nearer to his land. 

At last Pinzon comes and announces, to add to 
Christopher's uneasiness, that he has been search- 
ing in the Pope's library, in Rome, for information 
regarding that enormously rich Asiatic island 
called Cipango. As they all sit in the little cell 
at La Rabida, talking about the proposed western 
voyage of discovery, Pinzon cannot help throwing 
in a word occasionally about Cipango. He has been 
reading Marco Polo, and Japan, or Cipango, is 
very much on his mind. Perhaps on Christopher's, 
also, but he is content to stick to his "western 
lands." About this scheme the two men of Palos, 
Pinzon and Doctor Fernandez, are as enthusiastic 
as ever ; Martin Alonzo Pinzon repeats his offer to 
sail as captain of one of the ships ; he even goes 
further, for he offers to advance money for the 
venture in case the Crown is unwilling or unable 



A RAY OF HOPE 63 

to provide the entire sum necessary. All this 
sounds very promising to the good prior, who vows 
that he is willing to speak with the queen if Christo- 
pher will give up forever his idea of going to France. 
It is a last ray of hope to the discouraged man, and 
he agrees. 

And so that very day a courier started out from 
the white monastery among the dark pine trees 
to find the queen at Granada, and give her Friar 
Juan's letter craving an interview on " an important 
matter." In those days it took two weeks, at 
least, for a courier to ride from Palos to Granada and 
back. On the fourteenth day, we may be sure, the 
prior and his guest kept scanning the eastern 
horizon anxiously. That very evening the man 
returned. He brought a royal letter granting the 
monk's request. 

" Splendid!" cried the old monk. "I shall 
start this very night ! Find me a mule, some 
one." 

So everybody scurried around the neighborhood to 
see who would lend the prior a mule ; and finally 
a man of Moguer said he would spare his beast 
awhile, though he never would have lent him to 
any other man than the good prior of La Rabida ! 
Then he ventured to hope that the prior would 



64 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

not ride him too hard; as if any one, even an 
enthusiast helping to discover America, could ride 
a mule "too hard" ! 

By midnight the mule was brought up, and off 
started the prior, followed by the good wishes of 
everybody who was in the secret. Queen Isabella 
received him the moment he arrived at her camp 
of Santa Fe (Holy Faith) below the walls of 
Granada. With intense fervor he pleaded Colum- 
bus's cause. The Marchioness of Moya — the 
lady who had been wounded by the Moor at 
Malaga in mistake for the queen — was present, 
and she added her persuasions. The result was that 
Isabella not only commanded Columbus to appear 
before her, but she sent him money to buy suitable 
court raiment and to travel to Granada in comfort. 
How happy Friar Juan must have been when he 
sent the following letter back by royal courier to 
the waiting guest in La Rabida : — 

"All has turned out well. Far from despising 
your project, the queen has adopted it from this 
time. My heart swims in a sea of comfort and my 
spirit leaps with joy in the Lord. Start at once, 
for the queen waits for you, and I more than she. 
Commend me to the prayers of my good brethren 
and of your little boy Diego." 

What a dear, human, lovable old gentleman was 



A RAY OF HOPE 65 

that Rabida prior ! May his spirit still "leap with 
joy in the Lord !" 

Columbus was buoyed up again. To be sure 
the queen promised nothing definite ; but she had 
always told him that she would give him more 
attention when the war was over, and the courier 
declared that things were going very badly for the 
beleaguered Moorish city of Granada. It was the 
enemy's last citadel and, said he, it could not hold 
out much longer. Columbus, perhaps, took the 
news with moderation, for he was used to having 
things go wrong ; but if only for the sake of the 
good brethren, he must have tried to look happy 
as he put on his new garments and rode out of La 
Rabida for Granada. 



CHAPTER VII 

Isabella Decides 

We have now come to that famous Granada in- 
terview described in the first chapter, — a moment 
so important that Columbus, when he decided to 
keep a journal, opened it with this paragraph : — 

" In the present year, 1492, after Your Highnesses 
had concluded that warfare in the great city of 
Granada where I saw the royal banners of Your 
Highnesses placed by force of arms on the towers 
of the Alhambra, and where I beheld the Moorish 
King go forth from the gates of his city ..." 

How Columbus arrived during the surrender we 
have already seen ; how everybody of importance 
at the Spanish court — priests, military leaders, 
and government officials — gathered to hear him 
speak ; and how, for the first time, the majority of 
his listeners were won over to his unpopular ideas. 
We know, too, how their admiration turned to dis- 
trust when he demanded large rewards should his 
voyage of discovery be successful ; and we know 
how he was obstinate, and rode away, only to be 

66 



ISABELLA DECIDES 67 

overtaken by the queen's messenger at Piiios bridge 
below the high Elvira Mountains and brought 
back. And this is how Queen Isabella happened 
to recall him. 

Those friends who had been encouraging him for 
the last few years were deeply distressed over his 
departure and over the bad impression he had left 
at court. They felt that their beloved country 
was losing a wonderful opportunity of becoming 
the foremost power in Europe. England, France, 
Italy, all were greater than Spain because they had 
been forging ahead while Spain had been hampered 
by Moorish wars. Even Portugal, Spain's very 
small neighbor, had forged ahead by reason of 
her unequaled maritime enterprise. One of these 
countries was sure to grow even more important 
through giving Columbus a few ships and a few 
titles. Said this little group to each other, "No 
matter what the man's price, Spain will have to 
pay it!" 

Luis de Santangel, treasurer of King Ferdinand's 
realm of Aragon, determined to go and talk it over 
.with the queen who, apparently, had not been 
present at the recent hearing of Columbus. To 
apply further to Ferdinand would have been use- 
less, for he had vowed he would have nothing more 
to do with the matter. Isabella possessed more 



68 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

imagination than her husband, and to this imagina- 
tion Santangel thought he could appeal. 

First he pointed out that Columbus's very stub- 
bornness about rewards might be taken as proof 
that he was certain to find whatever he promised 
to find ; then he reminded her that the navigator 
was a very devout man, and that in his enterprise 
there was a strong religious motive ; should he 
discover new lands, not only would their heathen 
population be converted to Christianity, but their 
commerce would make Spain so wealthy that she 
could undertake a new crusade and conquer the 
infidels who held the Holy Sepulchre. This possi- 
bility impressed Isabella profoundly, for she and 
her husband were the stanchest defenders of 
Christianity in all Europe. Now that Santangel 
had roused her imagination, he proceeded to make 
the whole matter clear by a practical suggestion 
as to ways and means. He reminded his royal 
listener that Columbus had offered to raise one 
eighth of the expense of the expedition (Columbus 
having repeated the offer made at La Rabida by 
Pinzon) ; and as for the remainder, he, Santangel, 
would be responsible for it. Either he would 
lend it himself (he belonged to one of the rich 
Jewish families that had become Christian) or he 
would induce King Ferdinand to allow it to be 



ISABELLA DECIDES 69 

taken from the Aragon treasury and repaid later. 
(Ferdinand, apparently, was not such an unman- 
ageable person, after all.) 

Right here is where the story of Isabella pledg- 
ing her jewels would come in if there were sufficient 
reasons for believing it, but there is little proof of 
it; indeed, rather more against it. Not only did 
Santangel show the queen how the money could be 
obtained otherwise, but, as she had already pledged 
much of her jewelry in Valencia and Barcelona in 
order to aid the Moorish war, her husband's 
treasurer would surely have deterred her from 
parting with more. However, she was now 
so enthusiastic over Columbus's affair that ^she 
undoubtedly would have made some such offer 
had no other means of raising the money been 
found. 

The queen knew that her husband disapproved 
of the would-be discoverer's high terms; she 
knew that all the grandees of the kingdom disap- 
proved ; she knew that the expedition might end 
in failure and bring down ridicule on her head ; 
and yet she rose and cried in ringing tones, "Bring 
the man back ! I will undertake this thing for my 
own crown of Castile." 

Isabella, we must remember, was queen of 
Castile and Leon, and Ferdinand was king of 



70 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Aragon, each still ruling his own portion, although 
their marriage had united these portions into one 
kingdom. Hence, though Ferdinand had lost inter- 
est in Columbus's affair, Isabella was quite free to 
aid him. It was to commemorate her personal 
venture that later, after they had allowed Colum- 
bus to adopt a coat of arms, some poet wrote on 
its reverse side the famous couplet which excluded 
Aragon from a share in the discovery : — 

A Castilla y a Leon 
Nuevo mundo di6 Col6n. 

To Castile and to Leon 
Columbus gave a new world- 

The great moment having come when a Spanish 
sovereign cried out, "Bring the man back! The 
thing shall be done !" it was done. Columbus, on 
hearing these things from the messengers, turned 
his mule back to Granada. The necessary papers 
were drawn up to provide ships and men ; also, 
an order creating Christopher Columbus, or 
Cristobal Colon as he was called in Spain, Admiral 
and Viceroy, and granting all the other demands 
he had made in the event of his voyage being 
successful. Even the reluctant Ferdinand now fell 
in with his wife's schemes and signed the order 
along with her. 



ISABELLA DECIDES 71 

The preparing of these papers took some time. 
Columbus had returned to Granada in late De- 
cember, 1491, and it was not until April 17 the 
following year that "the greatest paper monarch 
ever put pen to" was signed. The fact that it 
refers to discoveries already made and discoveries 
to be made in the Ocean Sea is our strongest 
reason for believing that the pilot's story had been 
laid before the sovereigns. Christopher's long 
years of uncertainty were ended ; the man's 
great perseverance had won out at last ; and the 
weary petitioner who, some months before, had 
ridden doubtingly forth from La Rabida now rode 
back, bursting with joy, to fall on the good prior's 
neck and weep out his gratitude. 



CHAPTER VIII 

Off at Last ! 

Oddly enough, the ships Columbus was to take 
on his voyage were, according to royal command, 
to be supplied by that very seaport of Palos by 
which he is supposed to have entered Spain. 
Palos, Huelva, and Moguer, all thriving maritime 
cities in Columbus's day, are grouped at the mouth 
of the Rio Tinto. Tinto means deep-colored, like 
wine ; and as this river flows through the richest 
copper region in the whole world, it is not surpris- 
ing that its waters are reddish, nor that the copper 
trade enriched the neighboring towns. How the 
now unimportant Palos at the mouth of the Rio 
Tinto came to be chosen as the seaport from which 
Columbus should embark is an amusing story. 

Some time before, its inhabitants had, through 
disobedience or some other offense, incurred the 
displeasure of their sovereigns. By way of pun- 
ishment, the Crown ordered that Palos should fit 
out two caravels at its own expense and lend them 
to the government for a year whenever the govern- 

72 



OFF AT LAST! 73 

ment should call for them. The royal intention 
was, no doubt, to use the boats against Naples and 
Sicily, which they hoped to conquer after finishing 
the Moorish war. But when they decided finally 
to help Columbus, they remembered the punish- 
ment due Palos, and called upon it to give the two 
caravels to "Cristobal Colon, our captain, going 
into certain parts of the Ocean Sea on matters 
pertaining to our service." 

Thus while Ferdinand and Isabella meant to 
punish the little town, they instead conferred a 
great honor upon it. Little did Columbus dream, 
the day on which he and his boy approached it so 
empty-handed five years before, that he was to 
make it forever famous. Palos to-day is a miser- 
ably poor, humble little place ; but its people, 
especially the Pinzon family who still live there, 
are very proud that it was the starting-point of the 
momentous voyage of discovery; and hundreds 
of tourists visit it who never know that the sov- 
ereigns had intended punishing, instead of glorify- 
ing, the port. 

In May, 1492, however, when Columbus returned 
from Granada, the Palos inhabitants did not see 
any glory at all ! They saw nothing but the 
heavy penalty. Not only did this royal command 
mean that every citizen of Palos must furnish 



74 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

money to buy the ships and pay the crew, it meant 
that the ships and crew would never come back 
again from the "Sea of Darkness"! An expedi- 
tion through the well-known Mediterranean to 
Sicily or Naples would have seemed like a pleasure 
trip compared with the terrifying one now contem- 
plated ! They were handing over the equipment 
to a madman ! Poor little Palos was filled with 
misgiving, and we may be sure that Columbus, as 
he passed through the streets, was looked upon as 
the common enemy. 

The royal decree ordered Palos to have its 
contribution ready in ten days; meanwhile, a 
third caravel was to be bought; but so violently 
were the people of Palos opposed to the enterprise 
that not a single ship-owner would sell his vessel. 
Another difficulty was to get a crew of experienced 
seamen. With very few exceptions, sailors were 
afraid to go out on the unexplored Atlantic Ocean 
beyond the Azores. Spanish sailors had not had 
the excellent schooling of those in Portugal, where, 
for seventy years or more, expeditions had been 
going out to discover new lands and coming back 
safely. 

Columbus, therefore, found it difficult to induce 
the sea-going men of Palos to share his enthusiasm. 
This difficulty of getting a crew together must 



OFF AT LAST! 75 

have been foreseen at court, for the royal secretary 
issued an order intended to help Columbus, but 
which instead hurt his cause and proved most 
unwise. The curious order in question was to the 
effect that all criminals who would sign for the 
expedition would be "privileged from arrest or 
further imprisonment for any offense or crime 
committed by them up to this date, and during 
the time they might be on the voyage, and for two 
months after their return from the voyage." 

To criminals, apparently, being devoured by 
monsters rimming the western Atlantic appeared 
a better fate than languishing in a cruel Spanish 
prison, for the first men who enlisted were from 
this class. A more unfortunate method of recruit- 
ing a crew could hardly be imagined. Such men 
were undesirable, not only because of their lawless 
character, but also because they had never before 
sailed on a ship ; and the more this class rallied to 
the front, the more the respectable sailors of Palos, 
Moguer, Huelva, and other adjacent towns hung 
back. To go forth into the unknown was bad 
enough ; to go there in the society of malefactors 
was even worse. 

Here again Juan Perez, the good priest of La 
Rabida, and Pinzon, the friendly navigator of 
Palos, came forward and helped. Friar Juan went 



76 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

among the population exhorting them to have faith 
in Columbus as he had faith in him ; he explained 
to them all that he understood of geography, and 
how, according to his understanding, the Italian 
was sure to succeed. As we know, a priest was 
often the only educated man in an entire commu- 
nity, and was looked up to accordingly ; and so 
Friar Juan was able to persuade several respectable 
men to enter Columbus's service. As for Pinzon, 
both his moral and his practical support were so 
great that it is doubtful whether the expedition 
could have been arranged without him. Long 
before, at the Rabida conference, he had offered to 
go as captain ; now he induced his two brothers 
to sign also. Palos, seeing three members of its 
most important family ready to go, took heart. 
Pinzon next helped to find the three vessels needed, 
and put them in order. One of these ships be- 
longed to Juan de la Cosa, a well-known pilot, and 
Juan himself was prevailed upon to sail with it. 
(Later this Juan became a great explorer and 
made the first map of the New World.) Another 
and less fortunate purchase was of a vessel whose 
owners regretted the sale the moment they had 
parted with her ; so down they went to where the 
calkers and painters were making her seaworthy 
for the voyage, and tried to persuade them to do 



OFF AT LAST! 



77 



everything just as badly as it could be done. One 
can readily see that these were hard days for 
Christopher Columbus. The preparations that 
Queen Isabella expected would take only ten days 
took ten long weeks. 




Reproduced from Moore's " Christopher Columbus " through the courtesy of the Houghton 
Mifflin Co. 

The Three Caravels of Columbus. 

When finally ready, Columbus's little fleet con- 
sisted of three caravels — the Santa Maria, the 
Pinta, and the Nina (pronounced Neen'ya). A 
caravel was a small, roundish, stubby sort of 
craft, galley-rigged, with a double tower at the 
stern and a single one in the bow. It was much 
used in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries for 



78 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

the herring fisheries which took men far from the 
coast ; and when the Portuguese tried to find far- 
off India, they too used the caravel form of vessel. 

The largest vessel of the "Discovery Fleet" was 
only sixty-five or seventy feet long by about twenty 
feet in breadth, and of one hundred tons' burden ; 
Columbus having purposely chosen small ships 
because they would be better adapted for going 
close to shore and up rivers. Only the Santa 
Maria was decked amidships, the others had their 
cabins at either end. The cross was painted on 
all the sails. Columbus commanded the Santa 
Maria, with Juan de la Cosa as pilot; Martin 
Alonzo Pinzon took the Pinta, and his brother 
Vincente (pronounced Vin-then'tay) took the Nina. 

All told, one hundred men went forth on the 
famous voyage (although some writers put it at 
one hundred and twenty) and a number of these 
had never been to sea before. Among the hundred 
was a notary to draw up all papers of ownership 
(when it came to dividing Columbus's tenth part 
of the gold, precious stones, etc., that should be 
found) ; a historian, to keep an official record of 
all that should occur ; a metallurgist, to examine 
ores ; and an orientalist, learned in foreign tongues, 
who would interpret what the western peoples 
might say to the newcomers who claimed the 



OFF AT LAST! 79 

heathen lands for Spain. Besides these, there 
were two other learned men — a physician and a 
surgeon. Columbus himself was to act as map- 
maker and chart-maker. Strange to say, there 
is no record of a priest accompanying the expedi- 
tion. 

The great seriousness of the undertaking was 
felt more and more in Palos as work on the little 
caravels progressed. People spoke of it in awed 
tones and shook their heads dismally. Every day 
during the last week or two all the crew went 
religiously and faithfully to church. Columbus, 
being a religious man, no doubt approved of this ; 
yet it surely would have sent him forth in better 
spirits if his crew had looked upon his venture 
more light-heartedly, and less as if they were 
foredoomed to destruction. 

Now that we know the sort of men and ships 
that were to take part in this mighty enterprise, 
let us *see the sort of charts and maps and instru- 
ments our navigator carried along ; for until one 
understands these somewhat, one cannot realize 
the bravery it took to set out across the Atlantic 
in 1492. First, as to maps. Now that this world 
of ours has been so thoroughly explored that every 
bit of land and water is named and accurately 
noted, it is difficult for us to understand how 



80 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

the inaccurate, incomplete, fifteenth-century map 
could have been of any use whatever to an explorer. 
But we must always remember that our Genoese 
had a rich imagination. Our maps leave nothing 
to the imagination, either of the man who makes 
them or of us who look at them. Fifteenth-cen- 
tury maps, on the contrary, were a positive feast 
for the fifteenth-century imagination ! Their 
wild beasts and queer legends fascinated as well 
as terrified. Their three distinct Indies, two in 
Asia and one in Africa, offered every sailor who 
was intrepid enough a chance to reach that region 
of wealth. The latest and most accurate map, 
marking the Portuguese discoveries, would really 
have been helpful to any one who had not the "Go 
West" idea so firmly fixed in his mind; but in 
that one direction it marked no routes farther than 
the Madeiras and the Azores. All beyond these 
islands was wholly imagination. 

It was the same with the sea-charts ; no sound- 
ings or currents were marked. As to instruments, 
there were the lodestone and the compass, which 
had been known and used for several centuries ; 
and the astrolabe, a recent improvement on the 
primitive quadrant for taking the altitude of the 
sun. The hourglass was the time measurer. In 
short, in that wonderful fifteenth century, when 



OFF AT LAST! 81 

the surface of the world was doubled, there was 
nothing scientific about navigation. 

Beyond these slight aids, Christopher Columbus 
had to rely on an imperfect knowledge of astronomy 
and on those practical observations of wind and 
weather and water that he had made during his 
own voyages. Such slender equipment, plus the 
tub-like little caravels, would not have invited 
many men to try unknown waters, unless such 
men had Christopher's blessed gifts of imagination 
and persistency. 

At last the solemn hour has come to those 
quaking Palos souls. It is early dawn of August 
3, and a Friday at that ! The Santa Maria and 
the Pinta and the Nina are moored out in the 
copper-colored river, ready to go with the tide. 
Last night the last sack of flour and the last barrel 
of wine came aboard ; likewise, the last straggler 
of the crew, for they must be ready for the early 
tide. It is still quite dark, and on the shore all 
Palos appears to be running about with lanterns. 
Friar Juan is there to wring the hands of the one- 
time wanderer who came to his gate, and to assure 
him that one of the Rabida monks will conduct 
Columbus's little son Diego safely to Cordova. 
Columbus is rowed out to the largest ship. He 
gives the command and those ashore hear the 



82 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

pulling up of anchors, the hoisting of sails, and 
the cutting of moorings. Then the flags are 
raised — the Admiral's with a great cross in the 
center — and down the murky Tinto go the three 
little caravels with their unwilling, frightened, 
human freight. Those on shore turn tearfully 
into church to pray ; and those aboard watch the 
dim outline of Palos fade away; by and by they 
notice that the reddish Tinto has become the blue 
ocean sparkling in the early sunshine ; but no 
sparkle enters their timid souls. They can only 
keep looking longingly backward till the last tawny 
rocks of Spain and Portugal are left behind, and 
then there is nothing to do but sigh and mutter a 
dismal prayer. But Christopher's prayer is one 
of thankfulness. 



CHAPTER IX 

"Land! Land!" 

On the fourth day out from Palos the Pinto's 
rudder became loose, and unless the damage could 
be speedily repaired the ship would soon be a prey 
to current and wind. The Pinta was the vessel 
whose owners repented having sold her. No 
wonder then that Columbus suspected the rascals 
of having bribed the crew to tamper with the 
rudder, in the hope of forcing their ship to put back 
into Palos. But he would not put back, he de- 
clared. Martin Pinzon was commanding the 
Pinta, and Martin knew what to do with perverse 
rudders and perverse men. He immediately set 
to work to have the damage repaired. The ship's 
carpenter must have done his work very badly, 
however, for the following day the rudder was 
again disabled. Still Columbus would not turn 
back and risk the chance of all his crew deserting 
him. Instead, he continued sailing southwest to 
the Canaries — the point from which the ship- 
wrecked pilot was supposed to have started on his 

83 



84 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

unexpected trip across the Atlantic. These beauti- 
ful islands, from which the imposing peak of 
Teneriffe rises, had been known to the ancients 
as "The Fortunate Isles"; Spain now owned 
them and had colonized them, and after the great 
discovery they became a regular stopping-place 
for western-bound vessels. 

When Columbus came to repair the rudder, he 
found the entire ship to be in even worse order 
than he had supposed. She was full of leaks, and 
her poor sails were not of the right shape to respond 
to heavy ocean breezes. He would have given her 
up altogether could he have found another boat to 
take her place ; but the sparsely settled Canaries 
of 1492 were not the much-visited winter resort 
that they are to-day ; no big ships were then in 
the harbors ; and so there was nothing to do but 
patch up the Pinta and change the shape of her 
sails. 

While this was being done, Columbus's waiting 
crew became acquainted with the Spanish colonists, 
and with very good results ; for these islanders had 
a curious delusion to the effect that every year, at 
a certain season, they saw land far off to the west. 
Men were very credulous in those days. It is 
probable that their " land " was nothing more 
than clouds which, owing to certain winds of that 



"LAND! LAND!" 85 

particular region, lie low on the horizon for a long 
time ; but the people of the Canaries, and of the 
Madeiras too, all firmly believed they saw Antilla 
and the other "western lands" of legend; and 
Columbus, nodding his head wisely, told how the 
king of Portugal had shown him some reeds, as 
large as those of India, that had been washed up 
on the western shore of the Azores. "We shall 
find land seven hundred and fifty leagues from 
here," he repeated over and over, for that was the 
distance the pilot said he had gone. So sure 
was Columbus that, on leaving the islands, he 
handed each pilot sealed instructions to cease 
navigating during the night after they had gone 
seven hundred leagues. 

The tales and delusions that flourished in the 
Canaries put heart into the crew, so when the 
little squadron again set forth on September 6 
the men were less hostile to the expedition. 

Some excitement was given to this fresh start by 
a rumor, brought from one of the islands, that 
Portuguese ships were seeking the Spanish fleet, in 
order to punish Columbus for having sailed in the 
service of Spain instead of Portugal. As the 
pursuers never were seen by the Spanish ships, 
that story, too, may have been some islander's 
delusion; but it made the crew believe that 



86 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Columbus's undertaking must look promising to 
the great navigating Portuguese nation, or they 
would not be jealous of Spain's enterprise. 

More than a month had now passed since 
Columbus had left Palos, and only a hundred miles 
out from the African coast were accomplished ! 
Was ever a man subjected to more delays than our 
patient discoverer ! And now, when at last he was 
ready to start due west, a strong head sea prevailed 
for two days and would not let them push forward. 
So that it was actually not until September 8 that 
the voyage toward the "western lands" may be 
said to have begun. 

We have mentioned that Columbus kept a diary 
on this voyage. He was, in fact, a prodigious 
writer, having left behind him when he died a vast 
quantity of memoirs, letters, and even good verse ; 
and besides these, maps and charts in great num- 
bers. No matter how trying the day had been, 
with fractious crews and boisterous ocean, no 
matter how little sleep the anxious commander 
had had the night before, no matter how much 
the ill-smelling swinging lamp in his cabin rocked 
about, he never failed to write in his journal. 

This precious manuscript was long in the posses- 
sion of Columbus's friend Bartolome de las Casas, 



"LAND! LAND!" 87 

who borrowed it because he was writing a history 
of Columbus and wished to get all the information 
possible in the navigator's own words. 

Las Casas was a monk who spent his life in be- 
friending the Indians. When quite old, he ceased 
journeying to the New World and stayed at home 
writing history. He copied a great deal of Colum- 
bus's diary word for word, and what he did not 
actually copy he put into other words. In this 
way, although the original log of the Santa Maria 
no longer exists, its contents have been saved for 
us, and we know the daily happenings on that 
first trip across the Atlantic. 

Nearly every day some little phenomenon was 
observed which kept up the spirits of the crew. 
On September 13 one of them saw a bright-colored 
bird, and the sight encouraged everybody; for 
instead of thinking that it had flown unusually far 
out from its African home, they thought it belonged 
to the new land they were soon to see. Three 
days later they saw large patches of seaweed and 
judged they would soon see at least a tiny island. 
On the 1 8th the mended Pinta, which had run 
ahead of the other two boats, reported that a large 
flock of birds had flown past ; next day two pelicans 
hovered around, and all the sailors declared that 



88 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

a pelican never flew more than sixty or seventy 
miles from home. On September 21 a whale was 
seen — "an indication of land," wrote the com- 
mander, "as whales always keep near the coast." 
The next day there was a strong head wind, and 
though it kept them back from the promised land, 
Columbus was glad it blew. "This head wind was 
very necessary for me," he wrote, "because the 
crew dreaded that they might never meet in these 
seas with a fair wind to drive them back to Spain." 

Soon they were passing through the Sargasso 
Sea (named from the Portuguese word meaning 
"floating seaweed"). Its thick masses of drifting 
vegetation reassured them, for the silly legend 
that it could surround and embed a ship had not 
then found believers. Many years after it was 
discovered that several undercurrents met there 
and died down, leaving all their seaweed to linger 
on the calm, currentless surface. But back in 
1492 the thicker the seaweed, the surer were those 
sailors that it indicated land. 

Birds and seaweed, seaweed and birds, for over 
two weeks. Then on September 25 the monotony 
was broken. Captain Martin Pinzon called out 
from the Pinta that he saw land. Columbus says 
that when he heard this shout, he fell on his knees 
and thanked God. Scanning the horizon, he too 



"LAND! LAND!" 89 

thought he saw land ; all of the next day they sailed 
with every eye fixed on a far-off line of mountains 
which never appeared any nearer. At last the 
supposed mountains literally rose and rolled away ! 
It was nothing but low-lying clouds, such as those 
the Canary Islanders had mistaken for terra firma. 

Christopher's heart must have sunk, for they had 
come over seven hundred leagues, and for two days 
he had supposed he was gazing on the island of 
his search. 

In spite of this disappointment they kept on, for 
a plant floated by that had roots which had grown 
in the earth ; also a piece of wood that had been 
rudely carved by man; and the number of birds 
kept increasing. One can readily see how even 
the most skeptical man on the expedition should 
have felt sure by this time that the man whom he 
used to consider a mild maniac was in truth a very 
wise person. And perhaps the crew did feel it; 
but also they felt angry at those signs that mocked 
them day after day by never coming true. They 
grumbled; and the more the signs increased the 
more they grumbled ; till finally one morning 
Columbus came on deck and found that his own 
helmsman had turned the Santa Maria eastward, 
and all the crew were standing by in menacing 
attitudes. 



QO CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

The other two ships, as we have seen, were com- 
manded by the Pinzon brothers; and they, being 
natives of Palos, had secured all the respectable 
Palos men who were willing to enlist ; but Colum- 
bus had only the worst element — the jail-birds 
and loafers from other towns. And here they stood, 
saying plainly by their manner, "We are going 
back! What are you going to do about it?" 

We don't know exactly what he did do about it ; 
Martin Alonzo Pinzon sent him advice to "hang 
a few of the rebels; and if you can't manage to 
hang them, I and my brothers will row to your ship 
and do it." But Christopher appears to have 
handled the situation without their help, and with- 
out hanging any one ; for soon the helmsman swung 
the Santa Maria around again. On October 10 
trouble broke out afresh, and Columbus makes this 
entry in his diary : — 

"The crew, not being able to stand the length 
of the voyage, complained to me, but I reanimated 
them." 

By October 10 the voyage had lasted some 
seventy days ! No wonder the crew needed to be 
"reanimated." Yet, there were the birds flying 
out to them, bringing their message of hope, if 
only the poor frightened men could have had more 
faith ! The Pinzons meanwhile were having less 



"LAND! LAND!" 91 

trouble ; for when their sailors wished to turn back 
because nothing had been found seven hundred 
and fifty leagues west of the Canaries, Martin 
Alonzo told them all the absurd tales he had read 
about Cipango, and promised them, if only they 
went ahead, that its wealth would make their 
fortune. This appears to have hushed their 
murmuring ; but Christopher had no such flowery 
promises to hold forth. 

Martin Pinzon, having observed a few days be- 
fore that most of the birds flew from the southwest 
rather than the exact west, suggested to Columbus 
that land probably lay nearer in that direction; 
and Columbus, to please him, changed his course. 
It is interesting to speculate on what might have 
happened had Pinzon not interfered, for the fleet, 
by continuing due west, would have shortly en- 
tered the Gulf Stream, and this strong current 
would surely have borne them northward to a 
landing on the coast of the future United States. 
But this was not to be. On Pinzon's advice the 
rudders were set for the southwest, and nothing 
happened for several days except that same passing 
of birds. On October 11 a fresh green branch 
floated by; and Columbus, after dark had fallen, 
declared he saw a light moving at a distance. 



92 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Calling two of his sailors, he pointed it out to them. 
One agreed that there was certainly a light bobbing 
up and down, but the other insisted that he could 
see nothing. Columbus did not feel sure enough 
of his "light" to claim that it meant land, so he 
called the ships together and reminded the crews 
that their sovereigns had offered to the one who 
should first see the shore a pension of ten thousand 
maravedis (about twenty-five dollars) a year. In 
addition, he himself would give a further reward 
of a silk doublet. This caused them all to keep a 
sharp watch ; but land it surely meant, that fitful 
light which Columbus saw, for that very night — 
or about two o'clock in the morning of October 12 
— Rodrigo de Triana, a sailor on the Pinta, shouted 
"Tierra! Tierra!" and sure enough, as the dawn 
grew brighter, there lay a lovely little green island 
stretched before their sea-weary eyes ! 

Who can imagine the tremendous emotions of 
that famous October morning! Here were a 
hundred men who had just demonstrated that the 
world was round ; for by sailing west they had 
reached the east — if, as many were ready to be- 
lieve, they had come to Martin Alonzo's Cipango ! 
The world really was a sphere ! and at no point in 
rounding it had they been in danger of falling off ! 



"LAND! LAND!" 93 

Here they stood, that marvelous morning of 
October 12, on Cipango or some other island off 
Asia, as they supposed, with the soles of their 
feet against the feet of those back in Palos, and the 
fact did not even make them feel dizzy. We who 
have always known that the earth is a sphere with a 
marvelous force in its center drawing toward it all 
objects on the surface ; we who have always known 
that ships by the thousands cross the great oceans 
from one continent to another; we who have al- 
ways known that the whole inhabited earth has 
long since been explored, — we who were born to 
such an accumulation of knowledge can never realize 
what was the amazement, the joy, of that little 
handful of men who, after three lonely months on 
the unknown ocean, at last reached unsuspected 
land. 

And the humble Genoese sailor man, — what 
were his emotions on the great morning that 
transformed him into Don Cristobal Colon, Admiral 
and Viceroy under their Highnesses, the king 
and queen of Spain. Let us hope that he did not 
think too much about these titles, for we ourselves 
don't think about them at all. We are only trying 
to grasp the joy it must have given him to know 
that he had been true to his grand purpose ; that 



94 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

he had waited and suffered for it ; and that now, 
after declaring he could find lands in the unknown 
ocean, he had found them. Quite right was he to 
put on his scarlet cloak for going ashore, for he had 
conquered the terrors of the deep ! 

How eagerly they all clambered into the small 
boats and rowed toward the shore, Columbus and 
the Pinzon brothers and the notary in the first 
boat load. The new Admiral carried the royal 
standard, and when they leaped ashore, he planted 
it in the ground and took possession of the island 
for Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Then on a 
little hill they put up a wooden cross and all knelt 
before it and poured out their gratitude to God. 



CHAPTER X 

Natives of the New Land 

Columbus christened his little coral island San 
Salvador. The natives called it Guanahani ; but 
should you look for it on your map you may not 
find it under either its native or its Spanish name, 
for there was no way, at that early date, of making 
an accurate map of the whole Bahama group, and 
the name San Salvador somehow became shifted 
in time to another island. Thus was the original 
landfall long lost sight of, and no two writers could 
agree on the subject. Recently, however, the most 
careful students have decided upon the reef now 
called Watling's Island, to-day an English posses- 
sion, as Columbus's first landing-place. 

When you see that it is but a tiny dot in the ocean, 
you may think it an insignificant spot to have been 
the scene of the most momentous event of the 
Renaissance ; you may feel inclined to scold at 
that well-meaning Martin Pinzon for asking to 
have the rudders changed in order to find his 
Cipango. But it must be remembered that to have 

95 



96 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

found anything at all was an unparalleled feat; 
and furthermore, that wee San Salvador was not 
the end of Columbus's expedition ; it was merely 
the beginning, merely the lighting of that great 
torch of enterprise and investigation which was not 
to be extinguished till the whole American conti- 
nent and the whole Pacific Ocean had been ex- 
plored and mapped out. Columbus that day 
started an electric current through the brain of 
every European mariner. To discover something 
across the Atlantic was henceforth in the very air, 
and the results were tremendous. 

But to return to those happy Spanish sailors 
who on that October morn of 1492 at last planted 
their feet on terra firma. To explore the little 
island did not take long. They found it to be full 
of green trees and strange luscious fruits. There 
were no beasts, large or small, only gay parrots. 
The natives, guiltless of clothing, were gentle 
creatures who supposed their strange visitors 
had come from Heaven and reverenced them ac- 
cordingly. As the two groups stood looking at 
each other for the first time, the natives must have 
been by far the more astonished. Spanish eyes 
were used to races other than the white ; they all 
knew the brownish Moor ; and alas, many of them 



NATIVES OF THE NEW LAND 97 

knew the black Ethiopian too ; for, once the 
Portuguese started slave-snatching down the Afri- 
can coast, the Spaniards became their customers, 
so that by this time, 1492, there were a good many 
African slaves in Spain. But the Bahama natives 
knew of no race but their own ; so what could these 
undreamed-of visitors be but divine? Here is 
Columbus's own description of what happened 
when the white man and the red man had scraped 
acquaintance with each other : — 

"As I saw that they were very friendly to us, and 
perceived that they could be much more easily 
converted to our holy faith by gentle means than 
by force, I presented them with some red caps and 
strings of beads to wear upon the neck, and many 
other trifles of small value, wherewith they were 
much delighted and became greatly attached to us. 
Afterwards they came swimming to the boats, bring- 
ing parrots, balls of cotton thread, javelins, and 
many other things which they exchanged for glass 
beads and hawks' bells, which trade was carried 
on with the utmost good will. But they seemed 
on the whole a very poor people. They all were 
completely naked. All whom I saw were young, 
not above thirty years of age, well made and with 
fine shapes and faces ; their hair short and coarse 
like that of a horse's tail, combed towards the 



98 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

forehead except a small portion which they suffer 
to hang down behind and never cut. Some paint 
themselves with black, others with white, others 
with red, others with such colors as they can find. 
Some paint the face, some the whole body. Others 
only the eyes, others only the nose. Weapons 
they have none ; nor are they acquainted with 
them. For I showed them swords which they 
grasped by the blades and cut themselves through 
ignorance. They have no iron, their javelins 
being without it, and nothing more than sticks with 
fishbones or other thing at the ends. I saw some 
men with scars of wounds upon their bodies and 
inquired by signs the cause of these. They an- 
swered me by signs that other people came from 
islands in the neighborhood and tried to make 
prisoners of them and they defended themselves. 
... It appears to me that these people are in- 
genious and would make very good servants, and 
I am of the opinion that they would readily become 
Christians as they appear to have no religion. 
They very quickly learn such words as are spoken 
to them. If it please our Lord, I intend at my 
return to carry home six of them to your High- 
nesses that they may learn our language." 

In this brief entry in the Admiral's diary there is 
a whole volume to those who can read between the 



NATIVES OF THE NEW LAND 99 

lines, and a painful volume too, as much history 
is. Glass beads and little tinkling bells, you see, 
were all ready to be distributed from the caravels ; 
a proof that Columbus had not expected to reach 
the Asiatic Indies, for those Indians were known 
to be sharp and experienced traders. How did 
Columbus happen to know that it would be wise 
to carry rubbish along with him? Ah, that was 
something found out when he left Porto Santo to 
accompany the Portuguese expedition to Guinea; 
had he not seen the Portuguese commander ex- 
change ounces of bright beads for pounds of ivory 
and gold? 

And so he, Christopher Columbus, came prepared 
for similar trade in his western lands ; the world, 
we see, was hunting for bargains, trying to get much 
for little in the fifteenth century, just as it still is 
in the twentieth ! Then again, look at the Ad- 
miral's innocent remark, "I think they would 
make excellent servants." That is still the rule 
to-day ; the trained man sees in the untrained only 
a servant. It was perfectly natural that the 
Spanish eye should instantly see that little island 
converted into a Spanish plantation with those 
simple, gentle creatures who "learn easily" work- 
ing it. And lastly, let us look into this sentence : 
"I intend taking some of them home to show your 



ioo CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Majesties." It never occurred to the Admiral 
to add, "if they are willing to come with me." 
Indeed, it seldom occurred to any Christian of 
Christopher Columbus's day that a non-Christian, 
and especially a savage one, had the same human 
instincts as a Christian, and that he would have 
preferred staying in his own land and with his own 
family. Out of that horrible but common mistake 
grew up the whole miserable business of kidnap- 
ping, buying, and selling human beings. Let us 
not be too greatly shocked at our fifteenth- century 
hero for talking so unfeelingly. Remember, it 
was only about fifty years ago that we saw the last 
of slavery in these United States, and even then 
it died hard. Christopher was, on most moral 
questions, merely a man of his time, a fact to be 
kept in mind as we read of his later voyages. 

"They answered me by signs," wrote Columbus. 
In other words, the linguist of the expedition, the 
man learned in Asiatic tongues, had not been able 
to make himself understood on San Salvador ; and 
neither was he when they sailed on among the 
other islands. Clearly, these little specks of land 
in the ocean were not the large and extravagantly 
rich island of Japan which Martin Alonzo Pinzon 
had hoped to find. When Columbus asked these 



NATIVES OF THE NEW LAND 101 

friendly people for "Cipango, " they looked blank 
and shook their heads ; so did all the other islanders 
he met during his three months' cruise among the 
West Indies. All of the new-found people were 
of the same race, spoke the same language, and 
were equally ignorant of Cipango and Cathay and 
India, — lands of rich cities and temples and 
marble bridges, and pearls and gold. Columbus 
had found only "a poor people," with no clothes 
and hardly a sign of a golden ornament. True, 
when he "inquired by signs" where their few 
golden trinkets came from, they pointed vaguely 
to the south as if some richer land lay there. And 
so the Admiral, as we must now call him, never 
gave up hope. If, as Pinzon still believed, they 
had discovered Asiatic islands, somewhere on the 
mainland he must surely come upon those treasures 
which the Moors had been bringing overland by 
caravan for centuries past. He could not go for 
the treasure this trip ; this was nothing more than 
a simple voyage of discovery; but he would 
come and find the wealth that would enable the 
Spanish monarchs to undertake a new crusade to 
the Holy Land. 

October ran into November and November 
into December, and the Admiral was still finding 



102 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

islands. He had come, on October 21, to such a 
far-reaching coast that he agreed with Martin 
Pinzon that it must be the mainland, or Cathay, 
and started eagerly to follow it west. But the 
natives near the shore were timid and fled at the 
approach of the strangers. No splendid cities of 
marble palaces, nor even any mean little villages 
of huts, were in sight ; so two of the sailors were 
sent inland to explore and find the capital of the 
country. After three days the explorers returned 
and reported that all they had seen were many, 
many naked savages who dwelt in tiny huts of 
wood and straw, and who had the curious custom 
of rolling up a large dry leaf called tobago, lighting 
it at one end, and drawing the smoke up through 
their nostrils. Obviously, another "poor people" 
like those of San Salvador ; they were not the rich 
and civilized Chinese that Marco Polo had written 
about. Neither capital nor king had they, and 
their land, they told the explorers, was surrounded 
by water. They called it Colba. It was, in 
fact, the modern Cuba which Columbus had dis- 
covered. 

Instead of continuing west along Cuba's northern 
shore till he came to the end of it, the Admiral pre- 
ferred to turn east and see what lay in that direc- 
tion. It was one of the few times when Columbus's 



NATIVES OF THE NEW LAND 103 

good judgment in navigation deserted him ; for 
had he kept west he might have learned from the 
natives that what we call Florida lay beyond, and 
Florida was the continent ; or, even if the natives 
had nothing to communicate, west would have 
been the logical direction for him to take after 
leaving the extremity of Cuba, had he fully shared 
Pinzon's belief that Asia lay beyond the islands. 
But no, without waiting to get to the extremity 
of Cuba, Columbus retraced his course east, as if 
expecting to rind there the one, definite thing 
which, according to his friend, Las Casas, he had 
come to find. 

On November 12 he writes : "A canoe came out 
to the ship with sixteen young men ; five of them 
climbed aboard, whom I ordered to be kept so as 
to have them with us ; I then sent ashore to one of 
the houses and took seven women and three chil- 
dren ; this I did in order that the five men might 
tolerate their captivity better with company." 
No doubt he treated the natives kindly, but one 
can readily understand that their families and 
friends back on the island must have felt outraged 
at this conduct on the white man's part. 

The strange thing is that Columbus, so wise in 
many ways, did not understand it too, in spite of 
the miserably mean ideas which prevailed in his 



104 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

day regarding the heathen. But the very fact 
that he notes so frankly how he captured the 
natives shows that neither he, nor those who were 
to read his journal, had any scruples on the sub- 
ject. All moral considerations aside, it was tactless 
indeed to treat the natives thus in islands where 
he hoped to have his own men kindly received. 

On Cuba the boats were calked and scraped, and 
the Admiral superintended the operations. He 
was always a busy, busy man, on land or sea. Be- 
ing a great lover of nature, he left this nautical 
business for a while and traveled a few days inland ; 
and of every native he met he asked that same 
question that he had been asking among all these 
lovely islands, "Is there any gold or pearls or 
spices?" No, that land lies west, far west; thus 
Columbus understood the sign answer ; but after 
following a native in that direction for a long time, 
he had to give it up, for the time being. When he 
returned to the beach, Martin Pinzon showed him a 
big stick of cinnamon wood for which, in his ab- 
sence, one of the sailors had traded a handful of 
beads. 

"The native had quantities of it," Martin as- 
sured his Admiral. 

"Then why didn't the sailor get it all?" 



NATIVES OF THE NEW LAND 105 

"Because," and here Martin grew malicious, 
"you ordered that they could trade only a little, 
so that you could do most of it yourself !" 

And now the native had gone, and the rueful 
Admiral never saw him nor his cinnamon again ! 

At last, sailing along Cuba, he came to- its end ; 
and from there he could see another island eighteen 
leagues off. This was what we call Haiti, or San 
Domingo. The ships sailed over to Haiti, and 
the Admiral was so pleased with its aspect that he 
christened it Hispaniola, or little Hispania, which 
is Latin for Spain; but as Spain is called by its 
own people Espana, Hispaniola soon became 
Espaiiola. 



CHAPTER XI 

The Return in the Nina 

Espanola, or Haiti, the name we know it by, 
evidently corresponded to all of the Admiral's 
preconceived notions of what he was to find in 
the western waters. He describes it in his diary 
as the loveliest island they had yet seen; its 
thousands of trees "seemed to reach to Heaven." 
Any one who had lived long in Spain, where trees 
are few and small, must have taken great delight 
in the sight of a real forest, and so Columbus wrote 
much on the beauties of Haiti. Scratch away with 
your pen, good Admiral, and tell us about the 
trees, and the lovely nights that are like May in 
Cordova, and the gold mine which the natives say 
is on the island. Enjoy the spot while you may, for 
bitter days are coming when its very name will 
sadden you. Could you but see into the unknown 
future as clearly as you saw into the unknown 
west, you would hurry away from lovely "little 
Spain" as fast as your rickety caravel would take 
you ! Troubles in plenty are awaiting you ! 

1 06 



THE RETURN IN THE NINA 107 

But the skillfulest mariner cannot know what 
to-morrow may bring forth. How was even an 
"Admiral of the Ocean Seas" to know that when 
he went to bed on Christmas Eve, his helmsman 
would soon sneak from his post and hand the rudder 
to a little cabin-boy. The night was calm and 
warm, as December generally is in those southern 
waters. The Admiral had been up night and day 
when cruising along the Cuban coast, and now 
thought he might safely take a few hours' repose. 
Few hours, indeed, for soon after midnight he 
hears the cabin-boy screaming "danger!" A 
strong, unsuspected current has carried the tiller 
out of his weak hands, and the Santa Maria is 
scraping on a sandy bottom. Instantly the Ad- 
miral is on deck, and the disobedient helmsman is 
roused from his sleep. At once Columbus sees 
that their only possible salvation is to launch the 
ship's boat and lay out an anchor well astern ; 
he orders the helmsman and another sailor — for 
they are all rushing on deck now — to do so. But 
the minute they touch water the frightened, com- 
temptible creatures row quickly away and ask the 
Nina to take them aboard. The Santa Maria 
grates a little farther down into the sand bar and 
swings sidewise. Columbus orders them to cut 
the mainmast away, hoping to steady her some, 



108 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

but it proves useless ; the ship's seams are opening ; 
the water is rushing in ; they must abandon her to 
her fate. So they all follow that cur of a helmsman 
and crowd on to the Nina. Did ever a Christmas 
morning dawn more dismally? 

The island of Haiti had several kings or caciques. 
The one who lived near the Admiral's landing 
place had been extremely friendly to his strange 
visitors, and when in the morning he saw their 
sad plight, he sent all the people of the town out in 
large canoes to unload the ship. He himself came 
down to the shore and took every precaution that 
the goods should be brought safely to land and 
cared for. The next day, Wednesday, December 
26, the diary recorded: — 

"At sunrise the king visited the Admiral on board 
the Nina and entreated him not to indulge in 
grief, for he would give him all he had ; that he 
had already assigned the wrecked Spaniards on 
shore two large houses, and if necessary would 
grant others and as many canoes as could be used 
in bringing the goods and crews to land — which in 
fact he had been doing all the day before without 
the slightest trifle being purloined." 

Nor did his aid end here ; when Columbus decided 
to build a fort and storehouse out of the Santa 
Maria's timbers, the natives helped in that too. 



THE RETURN IN THE NINA 109 

In the fort it was decided to leave about forty 
men "with a provision of bread and wine for more 
than a year, seed for planting, the long boat of the 
ship, a calker, a carpenter, a gunner, and many 
other persons who have earnestly desired to serve 
your Highnesses and oblige me by remaining here 
and searching for the gold mine." 

Columbus was, in short, planting the first settle- 
ment in the New World. As the disaster had oc- 
curred on Christmas morning, he called the town 
1 ' La Navidad " (the Nativity) . To govern it he left 
a trusty friend, Diego de Arafia, whose sister was 
little Fernando's mother. Columbus drew up a few 
excellent rules for the conduct of his colonists, and 
made them a wise address besides. Then he loaded 
a gun and fired it into the hull of his stranded ship, 
just "to strike terror into the natives and make 
them friendly to the Spaniards left behind." This 
done, he said good-by to the colony, telling them 
how he hoped to find, on his return from Castile, a 
ton of gold and spices collected by them in their 
trade with the natives; and "in such abundance 
that before three years the king and queen may 
undertake the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre." 

On January 4, 1493, just a year after Columbus 
had been dismissed from Granada for asking to be 



no CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

made Admiral and Viceroy of the undiscovered 
lands in the west, he turned his back on those 
lands now discovered and started home. Not, 
however, with three ships, for we have learned 
what happened to the Santa Maria; not even 
with two ships, for we have not yet learned what 
happened to the Pinta, which Martin Pinzon com- 
manded. Martin had deserted a month before 
the shipwreck. Yes, that good and capable navi- 
gator, who had helped so much to get the expedi- 
tion started, had struck off with his picked Palos 
men on a different course, without asking leave 
from his Admiral. Nor was this all ; for accord- 
ing to the Journal, Martin had "by his language 
and actions occasioned many other troubles." 
Columbus professes that Pinzon's conduct mysti- 
fied him. It was on November 21 that the Pinta 
started off. Columbus could not believe his eyes, 
he says. Thinking that the ship must soon come 
back, all that night he "burned a torch, because 
the night was clear and there was a nice little 
breeze by which Martin could have come had he 
wished." But Martin did not wish. He still 
had hopes, perhaps, of finding Cipango before 
returning to Spain. 

And so, on January 4, when Columbus gave the 
pilot orders to set the rudder for home, there was 



THE RETURN IN THE NINA in 

left only the smallest caravel of all, the Nina. 
They kept on among the islands, frequently land- 
ing, and had many more adventures before they 
struck the open sea. Always they asked for gold, 
and sometimes they learned that it could be pro- 
cured by journeying "eastward," but more often, 
"west." In one place they had a new experience 
— a shower of unfriendly arrows. In another 
island the soil and trees so nearly corresponded to 
what Columbus and Pinzon had read of Cipango 
that Columbus believed for a moment that he had 
reached Martin's cherished goal ; to be sure, there 
were no golden temples to be seen, but Columbus, 
always hopeful, was willing to believe that these 
lay farther inland, near the gold mines. Resolved 
to investigate on his next voyage, he made accu- 
rate notes so as to find this same beautiful harbor 
again. But the natives who gathered around 
explained, by signs, that the island was small, and 
that there were no palaces or bridges. While 
lingering here, the most remarkable thing hap- 
pened; for another European caravel led by 
another explorer entered ! Of course it was the 
Pinta whose captain had been trying to find 
either Cipango or the mainland. There was 
nothing for Martin to do but to appear friendly 
and pretend that his ship had drifted away and 



112 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

got lost. Columbus accepted the excuse, and 
both ships started direct for home. The last of 
the Bahamas faded from sight that same day, 
January 16, and the two tiny caravels were again 
the only moving objects on the vast, but no longer 
unknown, Atlantic Ocean. 

For nearly a month, that is, until February 13, 
the passage was calm and monotonous; and as 
the Pinta was in bad shape again every one was 
relieved to find the weather so quiet; but on the 
13th the wind rose and rose till it lashed the sea 
into a fury. All day the sailors labored with the 
angry waves that kept dashing over the decks ; 
and all that night the two lonely little ships kept 
signaling to each other until they were swept too 
far apart. When day broke, the Pinta was nowhere 
to be seen and was sorrowfully given up for lost. 
But there was no time to mourn ; this day was 
even worse than yesterday, and the Admiral and 
his sailors, after the custom of their time, made 
vows that if only the Virgin would intercede with 
Heaven and save them, they would make a pil- 
grimage to her shrine of Guadalupe, far north 
of Sevilla, or go as penitents in procession to 
the first church they came to after reaching 
land. 



THE RETURN IN THE NINA 113 

In spite of these appeals, the danger increased 
every minute, and we may well imagine the agony 
of the little crew. The intrepid Columbus, who 
had accomplished a marvelous thing, a feat which 
would stagger all Europe, seemed destined to go 
down in mid-ocean with his great discovery ! 
Here was the Pinta sunk and the Nina likely to 
follow her any minute ! Europe would never know 
that land lay west of her across the Atlantic ! 
And all those timid, doubting men in Spain, who 
had opposed the expedition from the very first, 
would shake their heads and say, "Poor men, the 
sea monsters on the ocean's rim have gobbled 
them up !" It must have taken every bit of heart 
out of the brave Admiral to think that Spain would 
never know how gloriously he had succeeded. 

Down into his dark cabin he went, and there, 
while the little Nina staggered and pitched on 
the mountainous waves, he steadied his swinging 
lantern with one hand, and with the other hastily 
wrote on a parchment what he had done. This he 
tied in waterproofed cloth, placed it in a wooden 
cask, and threw it overboard. Then, for fear it 
might never be washed ashore, he hurriedly pre- 
pared a second cask and lashed it to the deck, 
hoping that the little caravel, even if he and all 
his men perished, might toss about till it reached 



114 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

the Azores, which he judged must be near. And 
sure enough, next morning land was in sight, and 
the sailors shouted for joy though the storm still 
raged. It was not until the 18th that the sea had 
subsided sufficiently for them to approach the 
rocky coast. When finally they were able to cast 
anchor, they found they were at Santa Maria, one 
of the Azores group. 

The Azores, you will remember, were inhabited 
by Portuguese. Columbus, knowing there would 
surely be a church there dedicated to the Virgin, 
sent half the crew ashore to make the penitential 
procession they had vowed ; but this first boat 
load were promptly made prisoners by the Portu- 
guese. What a sad reward for religious men who 
were trying to keep a vow ! The governor of the 
island then ordered Columbus to come ashore and 
be made prisoner also, which you may be sure he 
did not do. There was much angry arguing back 
and forth, for Spain and Portugal were old enemies ; 
but finally the Portuguese governor dropped his 
high-handedness, sent back the prisoners, and the 
poor storm-tossed little Nina bravely set out 
again to cover the many remaining miles between 
her and Spain. 

Even after all their hardships and their sorrow 
over the loss of their friends on the Pinta, the 



THE RETURN IN THE NINA 115 

unhappy mariners were not to be left in peace. 
After a few days another violent storm beat 
against them and buffeted them for days, while a 
terrific wind came and tore their sails away. The 
poor little Nina, bare-poled, was now driven help- 
less before the gale. And yet, marvelous to relate, 
she did not founder, but kept afloat, and on the 
morning of March 4, sailors and Admiral saw land 
not far away. 

"The Madeiras!" cried some, just as they had 
cried before when off the Azores. 

"Spain !" cried others, more hopefully. 

"The Rock of Cintra, near Lisbon!" cried their 
Admiral, whose power of gauging distances, con- 
sidering his lack of instruments, was little short of 
marvelous. And Cintra it was. Again chance 
brought him to an unfriendly coast, and gave him 
no choice but to run into the mouth of the Portu- 
guese river Tagus for shelter. 

Like wildfire the report ran up and down the 
coast that a ship had just returned across the 
Atlantic from the Indies (for the Spanish sailors 
called the new islands the Indies of Antilla) and of 
course the ship was full of treasure ! In command 
of this ship was Christopher Columbus, the very 
man whom King John of Portugal had refused to 
aid years before ! Hundreds of small boats sur- 



u6 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

rounded the little caravel, and the curious Portu- 
guese clambered aboard and asked, among their 
many eager questions, to be shown the treasures 
and "Los Indios." The commander of a Portu- 
guese man-of-war anchored near assumed a bully- 
ing attitude and ordered Columbus to come aboard 
the warship and explain why he had dared to 
cruise among Portugal's possessions. Columbus, 
more tactful than usual, replied that, being now 
an Admiral of Spain, it was his duty to remain on 
his vessel. Meanwhile, he dispatched a courier 
to the monarchs of Spain with the great tidings ; 
while from the king of Portugal he begged permis- 
sion to land, and sent word, not that he had, as 
people were saying, discovered an Atlantic route 
to the Indies, but that he had sailed to the fabled 
islands of Antilla in the far Atlantic. 

In answer, the king gave permission to land at 
Lisbon, and invited Columbus to court. Colum- 
bus may not have wished to go there, but a royal 
invitation was a command. On entering the 
king's presence, the great explorer saw many of 
the noblemen who, years before, had advised their 
monarch not to aid him. Our Admiral is not to 
be blamed, therefore, if he took a deep delight in 
painting his new world in the rosiest colors possible. 
His story made king and courtiers feel uncomfort- 



THE RETURN IN THE NINA 117 

ably foolish for not having been willing to take 
the risk Spain had taken. It was a bitter pill for 
poor King John to swallow, and straightway his 
scheming old brain began to hatch a pretext for 
getting the new lands for himself. 

"Pope Martin V.," he reminded his visitor, 
"conceded to the Crown of Portugal all lands that 
might be discovered between Cape Bojador and 
the Indies, and your new discovery therefore 
belongs to me rather than to Spain." 

"Quite right," murmured his courtiers. Then, 
when Columbus declared he had sailed west and 
not south, that Spain herself had warned him to 
keep clear of Portugal's possessions, and that the 
lands he had discovered were merely Atlantic 
islands, they all insisted that "the Indies were the 
Indies, and belonged by papal authority to Portu- 
gal!" 

Oh, those shifting, indiscriminate, fifteenth- 
century Indies which Europe invented to explain 
the unknown world ! What misunderstandings 
resulted from the vague term ! Columbus, again 
tactful, stopped boasting now, and merely observed 
that he had never heard of this papal treaty, and 
that the monarchs would have to settle it between 
themselves. Then he took his departure, with 
every show of kindliness from the king, including 



n8 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

a royal escort. The minute he was gone those 
courtly, crafty heads all got together and told the 
king that most likely the man was merely a boaster, 
but, lest he might have discovered territory for 
Spain, why not hurriedly send out a Portuguese 
fleet to seize the new islands ere Spain could make 
good her claim? Some even whispered something 
about assassination. 

Let us hope that King John turned a deaf ear to 
them. At any rate, Columbus was not assassi- 
nated, perhaps because he thought it safer to trust 
to his battered little Nina than to cross Portugal 
by land. Hurrying aboard, he hoisted anchor 
and started for Palos. 

It was on a Friday that Columbus had left 
Palos ; it was likewise on Friday that he had left 
the Canaries after mending the Pinto's rudder ; 
on Friday he had taken leave of the little settle- 
ment of La Navidad away back in Haiti, and now 
it was on Friday, the 15th of March, that he 
dropped anchor in the friendly port of Palos. 

For the astounded population it was as if the 
dead had come to life. Every family whose re- 
lations had accompanied the expedition had given 
the sailors up for lost ; and lo ! here was the man 
who had led them to their death, bringing a caravel 



THE RETURN IN THE NINA UQ 

into port. True, forty of the men had been left 
across the water, and as many more perhaps were 
under it. Only one ship had come back ; but it 
brought with it the amazing proof that the Atlantic 
could be crossed ! Shops were closed, everybody 
went to church and rendered praise ; bells pealed 
forth, and the "mad Genoese" was the greatest 
hero that ever lived ; then, as if to give the scene 
a happy ending, just before sunset of that same 
famous day, the Pinta, which had not been ship- 
wrecked off the Azores at all, also sailed into the 
Rio Tinto. Thus did the punishment of Palos 
end in her witnessing the greatest day of the 
fifteenth century. 



CHAPTER XII 
Days of Triumph 

Before following our happy Admiral into the 
presence of the king and queen, let us remain in 
Palos a little moment with that other courageous 
navigator, Martin Alonzo Pinzon. Poor Martin 
was not happy; in fact, he was very miserable. 
He had slunk from his storm-battered caravel and 
into his house without saying a word to any one. 
His wife, overjoyed at seeing him, threw her arms 
around him. 

"Oh, my good Martin!" she exclaimed, "we 
were mourning you as dead ! Cristobal Colon 
believed that you and your Pinta had gone to the 
bottom off the Azores !" 

"I only wish I had !" groaned Martin, dejectedly. 
"I only wish I had!" 

Perhaps you think he was repenting too deeply 
of that insubordination off the coast of Cuba, 'way 
back in November. No, it was not that ; Martin 
had another matter to regret now, more's the pity ; 
for he was a good sailor and a brave, energetic man, 



DAYS OF TRIUMPH 121 

ready to risk his life and his money in the discovery. 
He knew that, next to Columbus, he had played 
the most important part in the discovery, and he 
now realized that he was not to share the honor in 
what he considered the right proportion. He felt 
ill-used ; moreover his health was shattered. 

When the two vessels became separated in the 
storm off the Azores, he concluded just what the 
Admiral concluded — that the other ship had gone 
down. He considered it a miracle that even one 
of those mere scraps of wood, lashed about in a 
furious sea, should have stayed afloat; but both 
of them, — no ! two miracles could never happen 
in one night ! 

And so when he scanned the horizon next morn- 
ing and saw no Nina, and when he kept peering all 
that day through the storm and the little Nina 
never came in sight, a mean idea made its way into 
Captain Pinzon's brain ; and it grew and grew 
until it became a definite, well-arranged plan. 

"The Admiral has gone down with all aboard," 
he reasoned to himself. "Now, if my ship ever 
reaches Spain, why shouldn't I say that when 
Columbus failed to find land seven hundred 
leagues west of the Canaries, where he expected to 
find it, I persuaded him to accompany me still 
farther, and led him to Cipango." 



122 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Martin kept nursing this plan of robbing the 
dead Admiral of glory, until one morning he found 
himself off the Spanish coast just north of the 
Portuguese border. Into the little port of Bayona 
he put, and wrote a letter, and hired a courier to 
deliver it ; that done, he sailed south along Portu- 
gal for Palos, probably passing the mouth of the 
Tagus only a few hours after Columbus, bound 
for the same port, had turned out into the Atlantic. 
Martin Pinzon may thank his luck that the Nina 
started home before him. Imagine his utter 
shame and confusion had he been the first to enter 
Palos with his perverted news ! 

As it was, things were bad enough. He heard 
the Palos bells ringing, and saw the people throng- 
ing along the shore to look at the wonderful little 
boat that had traveled in such far waters ; his 
heart sank. The Admiral was home, and he, 
Martin Pinzon, he had sent from Bayona to their 
Majesties a letter in which were certain false 
statements. No wonder he sneaked off of his 
ship in the dusk and wrapped his cape high around 
his face and hurried to his house. No wonder he 
felt no happiness in seeing his good wife again, 
and could only groan and groan. 

Martin went to bed — his spirits were very low, 
and the stormy passage had racked his old body 




Photographed by Arthur Byne. 
Christopher Columbus. 

The portrait in the Columbian Library, Sevilla, where are stored the 
books collected by his learned son Fernando. 



DAYS OF TRIUMPH 123 

as well ; so he lay down ; and the next day he 
could not get up, nor the next ; and when, in due 
time, a royal letter came, thanking him for the aid 
he had given Columbus, but reproaching him for 
statements he had made which did not agree with 
those of the Admiral concerning the voyage, then 
Martin never wanted to get up again ; he had 
himself carried to La Rabida, where he died in a 
few days, the good friars comforting him. So no 
more of Martin Alonzo Pinzon, whose end was 
inglorious, but whose courage and enterprise 
were later remembered gratefully by Spain ; for 
Charles V., Queen Isabella's grandson, made public 
acknowledgment of Pinzon's great services in dis- 
covering the New World. 

And now to pleasanter things. What has the Ad- 
miral been doing since the Palos bells pealed out 
their joyous welcome to him ? First, of course, he 
greeted the good Friar Juan Perez. And next he 
dispatched another letter to court announcing his 
discovery. In fact, he sent several letters ; for, as 
we know, he was an energetic letter-writer ; one to 
their Majesties, one to Luis de Santangel, King 
Ferdinand's treasurer, who had urged the queen to 
help him, and one to another friend at court. Here 
is the beginning of the Santangel letter :, — 



124 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Sefior : 

As I know you will have pleasure in the great success which 
Our Lord hath given me in my voyage, I write you this by 
which you shall know that in thirty-three days I passed over 
to the Indies where I found very many islands peopled with 
inhabitants beyond number. 

"I passed over to the Indies," says the letter. 
The writer, we see, has decided to give his islands 
the vague general name that Europe applied to 
all unknown, distant lands — the Indies. Chris- 
topher was always ready to take a chance. If, as 
he had probably begun to hope, the western path 
might ultimately lead to India, why not at once 
adopt that important name ? 

His letters sent off to court by fast courier, the 
Admiral himself said good-by to Friar Juan and 
leisurely followed them. Ferdinand and Isabella, 
at this time, happened to be in the remotest possi- 
ble point from Palos, in Barcelona, the great sea- 
port of northeastern Spain. It was a long, long 
land journey for a seaman to make, but Christopher 
Columbus did not mind, for every step of it was 
glory and triumph. He who had once wandered 
over this same land from city to city, obscure, 
suspected of being either a visionary or an adven- 
turer, had returned as a great personage, an 
Admiral of Spain, a Viceroy, a Governor ; and, 



DAYS OF TRIUMPH 125 

best of all, a practical discoverer instead of a 
mere dreamer. Every town he passed through 
acclaimed him a most wonderful man. 

Besides, he had brought them proofs of his 
discovery — those six strange people called "In- 
dians" ; these, along with an iguana and some red 
flamingoes, parrots, and unfamiliar plants, were 
exhibited in every town, and every town gaped in 
wonder, and crowded close to get a view of the 
Admiral and his Indios, and to whisper in awed 
tones, "and there is much gold, too, but he is 
not showing that !" 

All this was very gratifying to the Admiral; 
but even more so was his reception when he ar- 
rived finally at Barcelona. Here he was met at 
the city gates by a brilliant company of caballeros, 
or Spanish nobility, who escorted him and his 
extraordinary procession through the streets of the 
quaint old town. We may be sure that the authori- 
ties made the most of what the discoverer had 
brought back ; the Indians were ordered to dec- 
orate themselves with every kind of color and 
every kind of feather. The tropical plants were 
borne aloft, and it was rumored that merely to 
touch them would heal any sort of malady. 

Most imposing of all, there was shown a table on 
which was every golden bracelet and ornament 



126 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

that had been collected. To be sure, these were 
not numerous, but everybody hinted to everybody 
else that they were but a few articles out of Co- 
lumbus's well-filled treasure- ship. The discoverer 
himself, richly clad, mounted on a fine horse, and 
surrounded by gorgeously accoutered caballeros, 
brought up the rear of this unique procession. 
What shouting as he passed ! and later what rev- 
erent thanksgiving ! Barcelona was no insignifi- 
cant little port like Palos, to be stupefied at the 
wonder of it ; Barcelona was one of the richest 
and most prosperous seaports of Europe, and could 
look upon the discovery intelligently ; and pre- 
cisely because she herself had learned the lesson 
that trade meant wealth, she rejoiced that this 
wonderful new avenue of commerce had been 
opened for Spain. 

The display over, the king and queen invited 
Columbus to tell his story. Now had arrived the 
most critical moment since his return ; but our 
Admiral, it is to be regretted, did not realize it, 
else he would have been more guarded in what he 
said. He should have told a straightforward tale 
of what he had done, without one word of exaggera- 
tion ; but Christopher had a fervid Italian imagi- 
nation and could never resist exaggerating. So, 
instead of dwelling on the one stupendous, thrilling 



DAYS OF TRIUMPH 127 

fact that he had sailed three thousand miles into 
the fearsome west and discovered new lands ; 
instead of making them feel that he was great be- 
cause of what he had done, and letting it go at that, 
the foolish man filled his narrative with absurd 
promises of miracles he would perform in the future. 
But none of it did seem absurd to him ! He had 
persuaded himself, by this time, that west of his 
poor, uncivilized islands lay richer countries ; and 
so he did not hesitate to assure the sovereigns that 
he had discovered a land of enormous wealth, and 
that if they would equip another expedition, he 
stood ready to promise them any quantity of gold, 
drugs, and cotton, as well as legions of people to 
be converted to Christianity. 

Indeed, he went much further, and made a 
solemn vow that he, from his own personal profits 
in the discovery, would furnish, within seven years, 
an army of four thousand horse and fifty thousand 
foot for the purpose of reclaiming the Holy Sepul- 
chre ! Imagine a man pledging this, just because 
he had gathered a few gold bracelets ! And yet, 
as he stood there in all the glamour of the court, 
with a whole nation regarding him as a wonder, he 
was so carried away by the situation that he prob- 
ably actually saw himself leading a triumphant 
crusade ! As for the king and queen, so deeply 



128 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

affected were they that they fell on their knees then 
and there and poured forth their thanks to God. 

The good Bartolome de las Casas (the priest who 
devoted his life to the Indians) was present and 
has described this memorable interview. Colum- 
bus, he says, was very dignified and very impressive 
with his snow-white hair and rich garments. A 
modest smile flitted across his face "as if he en- 
joyed the state and glory in which he came." 
When he approached the monarchs, they arose to 
greet him as though he were the greatest hidalgo 
in the land ; and when he dropped on his knee to 
kiss their hands, they bade him rise and seat him- 
self in their presence. Surely this was a great day 
for the humble Genoese sailor. He was Don 
Cristobal henceforth, with the right to select a 
noble coat of arms. For his sake his brothers 
Bartholomew and Diego (James) were to receive 
appointments, and his son Diego was to be brought 
to court and educated. Then, after securing the 
welfare of these members of his family, Columbus 
wrote to his old father, the wool-comber in Genoa, 
and sent him some money. 

All this shows his good heart toward his own 
people ; for toward one not his own was he guilty 
of an ignoble act. It was to that sailor Rodrigo, 
of the Pinta, who had been the first to sight land 



DAYS OF TRIUMPH 129 

early on the morning of October 12. When Colum- 
bus was asked to whom the queen's promised re- 
ward of ten thousand maravedis should go, he 
replied, "To myself." Surely it could not have 
been because he wanted the money for its own sake ; 
it did not equal twenty-five dollars, and he had 
already received a goodly sum on arriving in Bar- 
celona ; it must have been that he could not bear 
to share the glory with another, and so told himself 
that the light he saw bobbing up and down early 
that night was carried by a human being, and the 
human being must have been in a canoe, near the 
island. On the strength of this argument he claimed 
the money Rodrigo had expected to receive. 



CHAPTER XIII 

Preparing for a Second Voyage 

Once the story of the first voyage had been 
digested, all thoughts were turned toward prepara- 
tions for the next. Indeed, while Columbus was 
still in Sevilla on his way to Barcelona he had re- 
ceived a letter from the monarchs asking him what 
they could do to help him accomplish a second 
voyage, and he had sent them a list of his needs in 
the way of men, ships, and supplies. This the 
royal officers now brought out and the sovereigns 
went over it carefully with their new Admiral. 

Now began the test of Don Cristobal Colon, not 
as an intrepid mariner, but as a business man co- 
operating with other business men in the colonizing, 
Christianizing, and commercializing of the new 
territories. In this matter he was to be associated 
with the powerful Juan de Fonseca. This Bishop 
Fonseca was very keen and efficient, but worldly, 
and -vindictive toward those who opposed him in 
any way. To keep his good will needed much 
tact. He was not long in deciding that the great 

130 



PREPARING FOR A SECOND VOYAGE 131 

navigator had neither tact nor business ability ; so 
he snubbed him accordingly, and made his path a 
hard one. 

Knowing, as we do, that to-day Spain possesses 
not an inch of territory in the New World she dis- 
covered and opened up, that other nations have 
reaped where she sowed, we are prone to conclude 
that it was all bad management on her part. But 
this is not entirely true. So far as colonizing could 
be managed from the home country, Spain faced 
her new responsibility with great energy. Imme- 
diately a sort of board of trade, or bureau of dis- 
covery, was organized, with the capable Bishop 
Fonseca at its head. This was called the Casa de 
Contratacion and its headquarters were at Sevilla ; 
for Sevilla, though fifty miles up the Guadalquivir 
K.iver, is practically a seaport. Cadiz was ap- 
pointed the official harbor for vessels plying between 
Spain and the Indies. This meant the decline of 
proud Barcelona, but naturally a port nearer the 
Atlantic had to be chosen. Customhouses were 
established in Cadiz, and special licenses were is- 
sued to intending traders. Botanists were called 
upon to decide which Spanish fruits and vege- 
tables might best be transplanted to the new 
islands ; arrangements were made for shipping 



132 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

horses (which were lacking there), also sheep and 
cows. 

Plans were soon drawn up for towns and cities — 
not mere log-cabin villages such as the later Eng- 
lish and Dutch colonists were content with — 
and a handsome cathedral was to be begun in 
Haiti, and filled with paintings and carvings and 
other works of art. In fact, no material detail 
was overlooked to make the new settlements 
worthy of their mother country. Where the effort 
failed was in selecting the men to be sent out, not 
in the things sent. If only the proper individuals 
had been sent to Columbus's islands, all these other 
details might have taken care of themselves in the 
course of time. 

The second expedition was to be on a very large 
scale. It had to be assembled quickly lest other 
nations, learning of the discovery, or the one nation 
that had already learned of it, might get there 
first; wherefore Fonseca and Columbus were 
authorized to buy, at their own price, any boat 
lying in any port of Andalusia that was suitable 
for the long journey ; if its owner protested against 
the price named, they had authority to seize it. 
The same system applied to provisions and other 
equipment for the voyage — these must be given 



PREPARING FOR A SECOND VOYAGE 133 

at the government's price, else the government, 
represented by Columbus and Fonseca, would seize 
them. Lastly, these two could compel any mariner 
to embark on the fleet, and could fix his wages, 
whether he wished to go or not. 

The money for this second expedition came from a 
source which Spain has no reason to be proud of to- 
day, but which she had small reason to be ashamed 
of in the sixteenth century. It was the confiscated 
wealth of the Jews who, as enemies of Christianity, 
had been banished from the kingdom the year be- 
fore. Columbus's "one eighth of the expense," 
which by the contract of Santa Fe he was bound to 
supply, he had no means of furnishing, since he had 
not yet reached lands rich enough to yield it. 

It was at the end of May that Columbus left 
Barcelona, hoping soon to embark again for his 
"Indies." There was indeed every reason for 
haste, since King John of Portugal had lost no time 
in presenting his claims to Rome. 

We have already mentioned the important part 
which prelates played in the affairs of their coun- 
tries. Similarly, the Pope played an important 
part in international affairs ; and that is why a 
Pope had made the Portuguese treaty of 1470, and 
why King John now sought its enforcement by the 



134 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

present Pope. But Ferdinand and Isabella also 
were hurrying messengers to Rome. The pontiff 
at this time happened to be not an Italian but a 
Spaniard, Alexander Borgia, born a subject of 
Ferdinand's own kingdom of Aragon. Ferdinand 
knew well how to judge this shrewd Aragonese 
character, and what arguments were most likely 
to appeal to it. He told the Spanish ambassadors 
to say that Spain would immediately set to work to 
convert the vast new lands to Christianity ; that 
the Spanish explorers would take great care not to 
intrude into Portugal's African Indies, which shows 
how confused geography still was in everybody's 
mind ; and that, whatever the Pope's decision, 
Spain would defend her discoveries from any other 
claimant. This being made clear, the ambassadors 
were to present Ferdinand and Isabella's supplica- 
tion that a papal bull, or decree, might be issued, 
granting them all lands discovered in the past and 
future by their Admiral Don Cristobal Colon. 
Ferdinand of Spain being now a much more power- 
ful king than John of Portugal, the Pope granted all 
that Spain asked, but was careful not to admit that 
Columbus had discovered the real India ; for the 
bull refers only to "insulae et terra firma remota et 
incognita" or "islands and a remote and unknown 
mainland." 



PREPARING FOR A SECOND VOYAGE 135 

Meanwhile, all sorts of intrigues were going on 
between the two monarchs. John had spies at 
Ferdinand's court to discover the negotiations with 
Rome, and others to find out how Columbus's 
preparations were getting along; Ferdinand also 
sent spies to Portugal. These reported a Portu- 
guese plan for seizing the western lands before 
Columbus could return to them. This came to 
nothing, however, through John's fear of the Pope ; 
and well for Spain that John did fear the power of 
Rome, for it took Columbus so long to gather his 
second fleet that there would have been ample 
time for the Portuguese mariners to cross the 
Atlantic ahead of him. 

The very measures that had been devised to 
help the second departure retarded it. Ship- 
owners and provision dealers, in spite of royal 
orders, fought for fair prices and would not sell ; 
and as for assembling crews for the ships, the diffi- 
culty was not, as in the first expedition, in getting 
men to go, but in keeping them back. If only 
Columbus had not talked gold, gold, gold ! If only 
he could have refrained from exaggerating, and had 
simply stated that he had found some wild islands 
whose people had not a glimmering of civilization 
and who possessed but few golden trinkets ! Had 
he not deceived the people and himself, only those 



136 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

would have joined the expedition who had the true, 
fine, adventurous spirit ; or those who, seeking a 
new home, wished to settle down in new territory 
and develop it ; but instead, men thought only of 
the vast wealth to be easily picked up — they 
would not even have to dig for it ! Thus the ex- 
pedition attracted mainly men of doubtful character 
who wanted to become rich quickly. Others of- 
fered themselves who wanted nothing more than 
excitement and novelty ; others had dark schemes 
of breaking away from all restraint, once they 
reached the new land, and carrying on any sort of 
robbery or traffic that might offer profit; while 
still others were priests who thought only of con- 
verting the heathen. If ever men engaged upon 
an undertaking that required endurance, hard work, 
sound common sense, and a practical knowledge 
of how to tackle any task that might present it- 
self, this was the occasion. Yet the men who 
came forward lacked exactly these indispensable 
qualities. 

No doubt Columbus and Fonseca picked the 
best of them ; but the misfortune was that Colum- 
bus, who should have known what the business 
ahead of them required, did not know how to judge 
men ; and the shrewd archbishop, who did know 
how to judge men, had no idea what the occasion 



PREPARING FOR A SECOND VOYAGE 137 

was going to demand of them ; and thus they 
chose men for the second trip to the new lands who 
were utterly unsuitable. 

Nearly all the two thousand who applied for per- 
mission to sail were personally interviewed by the 
Admiral, which must have taken much time ; be- 
sides, he was busy buying wheat and flour, hard 
biscuit, salt pork and fish, cheese, peas, beans, len- 
tils, wine, oil, and vinegar, as well as honey, al- 
monds, and raisins for Don Cristobal's own table. 
It was just about the same food that a sailing 
vessel would carry to-day, with the exception of 
tea and coffee ; for Portugal had not then dis- 
covered the lands from which these two beverages 
were to be introduced into Europe. 

All these preparations were watched by two 
eager-faced boys who no doubt often said to each 
other, "I hope father will think us old enough to 
go with him on his next voyage!" For the Ad- 
miral had brought little Diego and Fernando along 
to Sevilla and Cadiz, so that he might see them 
every day before the long separation. 

Finally, on September 25, 1493, all was ready and 
the anchors were hoisted. How different it was 
from that first fearful sailing out of Palos in 1492. 
This time the fleet was magnificent; seventeen 
vessels, all newly calked and painted ; about fifteen 



138 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

hundred men, all happy and hopeful ; and on shore, 
instead of a populace wringing its hands in dismay, 
a populace cheering and making music and flying 
banners, and actually envying the lucky ones who 
were starting off to the wonderful new lands where 
they could pick up gold ! 



CHAPTER XIV 

Finding New Islands 

With the departure of this second expedition 
for the "western lands" Columbus's brief season 
of glory ended. Neither home-comings nor de- 
partures would ever be the same for him again ; for 
behind him he left a few jealous enemies, potent to 
do him harm, and with him he took men of such 
unstable character that more enmity was sure to 
spring up. These last he held with a firm hand as 
long as the voyage lasted ; Christopher could 
always control men at sea, but on land it was an- 
other matter. Even though he might have clear 
notions of the difficulty of planting a colony in 
new territory, how would these adventurers, and 
these high-born young gentlemen who had never 
worked, and these hundred wretched stowaways 
who, after Columbus had refused to take them, 
had hidden in the vessels until well out to sea — 
how would all these behave when it was time to 
fell trees, build houses, dig ditches, and cut roads ? 
And then again, good Admiral, why did you make 

139 



140 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

the great mistake of bringing no women colonists 
with you ? How could men found homes and work 
when there were no wives and little ones to be 
housed and fed? 

Of the better sort who accompanied this second 
expedition there were a few, but only a few, solid, 
reliable individuals whose society must have been 
a comfort to the Admiral ; among them, the 
faithful Juan de la Cosa, the Palos pilot; James 
Columbus, or as the Spaniards called him, Diego 
Colon, faithful to his celebrated brother, but un- 
fortunately somewhat stupid ; Antonio de las 
Casas, father of the young priest who later became 
the champion of the Indians and who wrote 
Columbus's biography ; Juan Ponce de Leon, an 
intrepid aristocrat who was destined to discover 
Florida; and Doctor Chanca, a physician and 
botanist who was to write an account of the vege- 
tables and fruits of the western lands. These 
vegetables included the "good tasting roots either 
boiled or baked" which we know as potatoes. 
Most daring of all the company was a young noble- 
man named Alonzo de Ojeda. Alonzo was a real 
adventurer, willing to face any danger or hazard. 

Columbus, on leaving Spain, again headed for the 
Canaries, this time for the purpose of taking on 



FINDING NEW ISLANDS 141 

sheep, goats, swine, and other domestic animals 
to stock the new lands ; then off again for the real 
business of crossing the Atlantic. Gold being the 
thought uppermost in every mind — even in the 
mind of the Admiral — the rudders were set south- 
west for the Caribbean Islands. 

These, the natives of Haiti had told him, were 
full of gold ; at least, that is how Columbus inter- 
preted the signs the Haitians made when he asked 
for gold ; and so, instead of hurrying to cheer up 
those forty men he left at La Navidad, he steered 
to a point considerably south of Haiti and reached 
the Caribbeans precisely ; which, it will be seen, 
was a far greater test of nautical skill than merely 
to sail anywhere into the west, as he had done on 
the first voyage. 

The sea nearly all the way across was deliciously 
smooth and the trade wind soft and steady ; only 
once was there bad weather ; very bad while it 
lasted and very terrifying to those who had never 
before been at sea; but it happened that, during 
the storm, the electric phenomenon known as the 
Light of St. Elmo was seen over the rigging of the 
Mari-ga-lan'te, the Admiral's ship, and all that 
horde of superstitious men were reassured and 
considered it a sign that the expedition was under 
divine protection. 



142 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Yet a little later, when the water supply ran low, 
and when there were so many leaks in the vessels 
that the pumps were working constantly, they be- 
gan to grumble. But Columbus, who was a magi- 
cian at reckoning sea distance, laughed at their 
alarm and said to them, "Drink all the water you 
like ; we shall reach land in forty-eight hours." 
Next day no land appeared, but still he spoke con- 
fidently and ordered them to take in sail and slow 
down. That was at sunset, on Saturday, Novem- 
ber 2 ; Sunday morning, November 3, the sun 
rose on a beautiful verdant island only a few leagues 
ahead of them. The magician had fairly scented 
land from afar ! 

This little island, Dominica he called it, had no 
harbor; but what did that matter since another 
island lay alongside it, to the north. Here they 
landed and took possession in the name of Spain — 
not only of the one island but of five or six more 
which were visible from a little hill. On this spot, 
which they christened Marigalante, there were no 
inhabitants ; so, after waiting only long enough to 
feast on new, luscious fruits, they sailed to the 
next island, which they called Guadaloupe. 

And here the Spaniards began to learn what 
real savagery meant. Only women and children 



FINDING NEW ISLANDS 143 

appeared to inhabit the island, and these fled in 
land at the strangers' approach. This afforded an 
excellent opportunity for the visitors to look into 
the native huts and see how these wild people lived. 
Hammocks of netting, earthenware dishes, and 
woven cotton cloth were found ; but along with 
these rudiments of civilization something else was 
found that made the Europeans look at each other 
in horror — human bones left from a recent feast ! 

The next day they landed at a different island, 
for these Caribbeans all lie close together. Here 
the deplorable business of kidnapping began 
again, and quite legitimately, the Spaniards 
thought, for were not the miserable creatures 
cannibals? A young boy and three women were 
captured, and from these Columbus learned that 
the people, of the two islands he first visited, 
along with a third he had not yet come to, had 
formed a league among themselves to make war 
on the remainder of the islands. That was why 
all the men happened to be absent at the time of 
the Spanish landing. They had gone off in their 
canoes to capture women as wives, and men and 
children to be killed and eaten ! 

The fact that the warriors of this island were 
absent emboldened a party of nine Spaniards to 
penetrate inland in search of gold; secretly, too, 



144 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

without the Admiral's knowledge or consent. 
Night came and the nine men had not returned. 
The crew were naturally anxious to leave the island 
before its man-eating population returned, but 
the majority were willing to await their lost com- 
panions. Next day Alonzo de Ojeda, who said 
he was not afraid of cannibals, led a search party 
clear across the island, but without success ; not 
until the . third anxious day had passed did the 
gold seekers get back to the ship. They had paid 
dearly for their adventure, having been utterly 
lost in a tangled forest, without food, torn and 
scratched by brambles, and fearing all the time 
that the fleet would give them up for dead and sail 
without them. 

A week having now been passed among the canni- 
bals, Columbus decided to give up gold-hunting 
and go and greet the colony at La Navidad. His 
captives told him that the mainland lay south, 
and had he not grown anxious about the men he 
had left the year before, he might have sailed south 
and found South America ; but instead he headed 
north, stopping sometimes at intermediate is- 
lands. Once again they tried capturing some 
natives whom they saw on the shore, but these 
Carib women were wonderful archers, and a num- 
ber of them who managed to upset their canoe and 



FINDING NEW ISLANDS 145 

swim for liberty shot arrows as they swam. Two 
of the Spaniards were thus wounded. 

Not until the 2 2d of November did the fleet come 
in sight of Haiti — about a month later than if 
they had come direct from the Canaries. Many 
islands, including Porto Rico, had been discovered 
and named before they finally touched Espafiola 
and began sailing along its northern coast to where 
the Santa Maria had been wrecked. Although no 
gold had been found, all the men on the boats were 
confident that quantities of it would have been col- 
lected during the year by the men at La Navidad ; 
and so great content reigned on all the ships. 

While the fleet was still some distance away, one 
of the captured Haiti Indians who had made 
the voyage to Spain and back was sent ashore to 
tell Chief Guacanagari and the colony of the 
Admiral's return. This Indian messenger, having 
been converted to Christianity and having learned 
to speak Spanish, was expected to be of great use 
in the present expedition. Before sending him 
ashore they dressed him handsomely and covered 
him with showy trinkets that would impress his 
countrymen. But the real impression was to come 
from his telling his tribe what a powerful people the 
Spaniards were and how advisable it would be to 



146 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

receive them kindly. This attended to, the con- 
verted Indian was to rejoin the ship at La Navidad, 
where Columbus would richly reward him for his 
services. Our simple Columbus, who loved Spain's 
civilization and power, entertained great hopes of 
the Indian's mission, and never suspected that this 
savage preferred his native island ; and that, once 
he set foot on it, he would never again risk himself 
in the presence of white men ! 

The Admiral next stopped at the mouth of a 
stream where, on his previous voyage, he had heard 
of gold. The party who went ashore to search 
for it soon came back aghast. They had found, 
instead, two bodies lashed to a stake in the form 
of a cross. The men were hardly recognizable, but 
the scraps of clothing looked Spanish. The 
ominous news ran from ship to ship and gloom 
began to settle over the entire expedition. 

Columbus, much disturbed, hastened on to La 
Navidad. On approaching the spot his crew fired 
a cannon and shouted, but no response came. 
They landed ; but it was to find the fortress a 
blackened ruin and the whole settlement destroyed. 
Even the stout-hearted Admiral was now utterly 
dejected. 

After a spell of grieving came a ray of hope. 
Perhaps Diego de Arafia and his other friends were 



FINDING NEW ISLANDS 147 

not all dead ; perhaps the treacherous natives had 
merely driven them off. He had told Diego to 
keep the gold they gathered hidden in a well, so 
that, in case of attack, it would be safe ; and off 
Columbus started to hunt for the well. No 
amount of searching revealed it ; instead, another 
painful sight, a few dead Spaniards ; that was all. 
Inland, far away from his original abode, the 
king was found who had so kindly helped Colum- 
bus when the Santa Maria was wrecked — King 
Guacanagari. From him came the only account 
ever obtained of the fate of the colony; a true 
account apparently, for later investigations con- 
firmed it. The Spaniards, with the exception of 
their leader, Arafia, had behaved very badly to- 
ward each other and toward the natives. They 
wanted wives, and had stolen all the young women 
from Guacanagari's village and then had fought 
with each other for the prettiest. Having ob- 
tained wives, some deserted the little European 
colony and went to live as savages among the 
Indians. Others had gone to find the gold mines, 
which quest took them to the eastern part of the 
island where the fierce chief Caonabo ruled. So 
enraged was this chief at their invasion that he 
not only killed them, but descended upon their 
compatriots at La Navidad, and attacked them 



148 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

one night when all was still and peaceful. 
Guacanagari heard the savage war whoops, and 
out of friendship for the Admiral he tried to 
drive off the assailants, but he himself was wounded 
and his house was burned. The Spanish fort was 
fired ; the inmates rushed out, only to be butchered 
or driven into the sea and drowned. Not one man 
escaped. 

Thus ended Columbus's second trip westward 
across the Atlantic. What a landing ! Black- 
ened ruins, dead bodies, the enmity of the natives, 
and — no gold ; all this where he had hoped to be 
greeted by happy, prosperous men. Here were 
the first fruits of his great discovery ; fcere the 
first sample of Spanish ability at colonizing; here 
the first specimen of what the white man could do 
in a new and peaceful land ; and our great Admiral, 
thinking of the mixed band he had brought out 
from Spain to colonize, dropped his head and 
covered his face with his hands. 

All were anxious to leave the scene of this 
tragedy ; but before they left, the native king, 
Guacanagari, who appeared as friendly as ever, 
expressed a desire to visit Columbus's ship. While 
on it he managed to talk with the Caribbean 
Indians who were aboard. That night the cap- 



FINDING NEW ISLANDS 149 

tives, including a woman whom the Spaniards had 
named Catalina, made their escape and were 
picked up in waiting canoes. Next day when 
Columbus sent to Guacanagari to demand their 
return, the king and his whole village had disap- 
peared. It would appear that this simple savage 
had grown into a far shrewder person than his 
European host since that Christmas night when 
the Santa Maria ran aground. 

La Navidad having disappeared, the next con- 
cern was to found another settlement. A point 
some distance east was chosen, where a beautiful 
green vega, or plain, stretched far back from the 
shore. The city was to be called Isabella, in 
honor of the queen who had made possible the 
discovery of the new lands. Streets were laid 
out, a tine church and a storehouse were planned 
to be built of stone, and many private houses, to 
be built of wood or adobe or any convenient 
material, were to be constructed. All this was 
very fine in plan; but when the men were called 
upon to do the hard manual labor that is required 
for building a town and planting gardens and 
fields in an utter wilderness, many of them mur- 
mured. They had not come to do hard work, 
they had come to pick up nuggets of gold. Be- 



150 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

sides, many were ill after the long diet of salted 
food and musty bread; even Columbus himself 
fell ill upon landing, and could not rise from his 
bed for weeks ; and although all this time he 
continued to direct the work of town building, 
it progressed but slowly. 

So there lay the great Christopher Columbus, 
bedridden and empty-handed, at the moment 
when he hoped to be sending back to Spain the 
gold and other precious substances collected by 
the men of his first settlement. What should he 
write to the sovereigns waiting for news? He 
could not bear to write the sad truth and tell 
them how all his hopes, and theirs, had come to 
naught. If only he could have known, or sur- 
mised, that his islands fringed a magnificent new 
continent that had never even been dreamed of 
by civilized man, his worry might have ceased ; for 
surely a man who had found a new world for Spain 
need not have found gold besides ; but he knew 
nothing of the continent as yet ; and remembering 
the extravagant promises made in Barcelona, he 
decided to postpone writing the letter home to 
Spain until he should make another attempt to 
find gold. 

Accordingly, he sent two expeditions to differ- 
ent parts of the island to find the mines which, 



FINDING NEW ISLANDS 151 

according to his understanding of the natives' 
sign language, must exist. Alonzo de Ojeda and 
the other captain he sent out returned each with a 
little gold ; and this slight find was sufficient to 
set Columbus's fervid imagination at work again. 
He sent a rosy account of the island to the mon- 
archs, and repeated his former promise to soon 
send home shiploads of gold and other treasures. 
And no wonder that he and so many others wished 
for gold; for it is written in his journal, "Gold 
is the most precious of all substances ; gold con- 
stitutes treasure ; he who possesses it has all the 
needs of this world as well as the price for rescuing 
souls from Purgatory and introducing them into 
Paradise." If gold could do all that, who would 
not try to possess it? 

But so far as his letter to the monarchs went, 
Columbus knew, even while writing it, that real 
gold and the promise of gold were two very differ- 
ent things. His promises could never fill up the 
empty hold of the ship that was going back to 
Spain ; and so, failing the rich cargo which the 
men of La Navidad were to have gathered, Colum- 
bus bethought himself of Some other way in which 
his discoveries might bring money to the Spanish 
Crown. The plan he hit upon was the plan of a 
sick, disappointed, desperate man, as will be seen 



152 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

from a portion of his letter. The letter, intended 
for the sovereigns, was addressed, as was the 
custom, to their secretary. 

"Considering what need we have for cattle and 
beasts of burden . . . their Highnesses might 
authorize a suitable number of caravels to come 
here every year to bring over said cattle and pro- 
visions. These cattle might be paid for with slaves 
taken from among the Caribbeans, who are a wild 
people fit for any work, well built and very intelli- 
gent; and who, when they have got rid of the 
cruel habits to which they have been accustomed, 
will be better than any other kind of slaves." 

Horrible, all this, we say, but it was the fifteenth 
century. Slavery had existed for ages, and many 
still believed in it, for men like the good Las Casas 
were few. Moreover, Columbus was tormented 
by a feeling of not having "made good." He had 
promised his sovereigns all sorts of wealth, and 
instead he had been able to collect only an insig- 
nificant amount of gold trinkets on Haiti. Des- 
perate for some other source of wealth, in an evil 
moment he advised slave-catching. 

Besides considering himself to have fallen short 
in the royal eyes, he was hounded by the com- 
plaints and taunts of the men who had accompanied 
him. They hated work, so he tried to appease 



FINDING NEW ISLANDS 153 

them by giving them authority to enslave the 
natives; and, as our good Las Casas wisely re- 
marks, "Since men never fall into a single error 
. . . without a greater one by and by following," 
so it fell out that the Spaniards were cruel masters 
and the natives revolted ; to subdue them harsher 
and harsher measures were used; not till most of 
them had been killed did the remaining ones 
yield submissively. 



CHAPTER XV 

On a Sea of Troubles 

In the new colony of Isabella things went badly 
from the very start. Its governor comforted him- 
self by thinking that he could still put himself 
right with everybody by pushing farther west and 
discovering whether the Asiatic mainland — which 
Martin Alonzo Pinzon had always insisted lay back 
of the islands — was really there. Accordingly, 
Columbus took a crew of men and departed April 
24, 1494, leaving his brother Diego in command of 
the colony. Never had Columbus done a more un- 
wise thing than to leave Isabella at that moment. 
Not one single lesson of self-help and cooperation 
had his men yet learned ; and of course they re- 
proached him with their troubles. The root of it 
all was disappointment. They had come for wealth 
and ease, and had found poverty and hardship. 
They even threatened to seize the ships in the 
harbor and sail off, leaving the two brothers alone 
on the island ; yet, knowing all this, Columbus de- 
cided to go off and continue his discoveries ! 

154 



ON A SEA OF TROUBLES 155 

Again he just escaped finding the mainland. 
On sailing west from Isabella and reaching Cuba 
at the nearest point to Haiti, he decided to coast 
along its southern shore. He had gone along its 
northern shore on his first voyage, and had turned 
back instead of continuing toward the continent. 
This time he took the southern coast, pushing west 
for about a month and a half, and again turning 
back when he was not more than two hundred 
miles from Central America. The natives whom 
he questioned told him, as on his first visit to Cuba, 
that their land was surrounded by water; but 
Alonzo de Ojeda, who was with Columbus, said, 
"These are a stupid race who think that all the 
world is an island, and do not know what a conti- 
nent is!" Columbus too did not wish to believe 
the savages; he preferred to believe that Cuba 
was the continent. Yet as a navigator Columbus 
was honest, and no doubt would have gone farther 
and proved the natives right had he not been 
pestered by a grumbling crew. His men were 
dissatisfied at the long tropic voyage which never 
appeared to bring them one inch nearer wealth, 
and they clamored to return to Isabella. So 
mutinous did they become that he decided to turn 
back, but it was with a heavy heart. Again he 
must write to the sovereigns and report that he 



156 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

had not yet found a land of wealth. The very 
thought of this next letter made him miserable. 

In fact, our enterprising Admiral was in a very 
bad way by this time. We recall how he was ill 
when the new settlement of Isabella was started, 
and how he nevertheless personally superintended 
the work. Always a tremendous worker on sea 
or land, always at his post, meeting his heavy 
responsibilities as best he knew how, it was noth- 
ing but work and worry for the harassed Christo- 
pher Columbus; and now when he, a sick man, 
had undertaken this voyage to the mainland, the 
natives had declared that Cuba was only a big 
island ! 

Columbus lay down in his bunk, broken-hearted. 
A fever seized him and he raved for several days ; 
and in his ravings he hit upon a plan which was so 
childish that one would laugh were it not also so 
pitiful. He decided to write that he had discovered 
the mainland of Asia, but not yet Cathay, as 
Cathay lay far inland. To prove that Cuba was 
really Asia, he called together his crew of eighty 
men and made them swear before a notary that 
not only had they cruised along the mainland, but 
they had learned that it was possible to return 
from Cuba to Spain by land. This statement 
being duly sworn to and sealed, the crew were 



ON A SEA OF TROUBLES 157 

informed that if any one of them should ever deny 
this, his tongue would be torn out to prevent his 
repeating the lie. 

This time they did not keep so close to the shore. 
By going farther out they discovered the Isle of 
Pines, also the pretty little group known as "The 
Queen's Gardens," and Jamaica, later to be the 
scene of much woe. Always islands, islands, is- 
lands ! Among some of them navigation was very 
dangerous, and the Admiral, still ill, never left 
the deck for several days and nights. At last 
he broke down and could not move from his bed. 
The minute this happened the crew, who had 
not the slightest interest in discovering beautiful 
islands, hurried direct to their countrymen in 
Isabella. 

Poor Admiral ! Poor men ! If only they could 
have forgotten all about the riches of Cathay, and 
could have realized the wonder and the honor of 
being the first white men to gaze on all these lovely 
spots, these bits of earth straight from the hand of 
God, how their hearts might have welled with joy 
and thanksgiving ! But no, it was a dissatisfied, 
heavy-hearted body of men who came back empty- 
handed to Isabella on September 29, and reported 
that in all their five months' absence they had seen 
nothing but savage islands. 



158 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Now let us see what mischief had been brewing 
in the colony during their absence. Columbus, 
before leaving, had commanded the military gov- 
ernor to place himself at the head of four hundred 
men and scour the island for provisions. Instead 
of following these orders, the military governor, 
without Diego Columbus's leave, went aboard the 
first ship sailing for Spain. In other words, he 
deserted. The remainder, on learning this, made 
a raid on the nearest natives and stole their food 
and their wives ; and the natives naturally took 
revenge. 

It was while the outraged Indians were gathering 
in large numbers to destroy Isabella that Columbus 
returned. A sad state of affairs to greet a sick 
man, and especially when the trouble was all of 
Spanish making. But there was no time to spend 
in asking whose fault it was. Their lives were at 
stake. Isabella might soon share the horrible fate 
of La Navidad. Columbus hurriedly mustered 
his men — less than two hundred — and divided 
them into two companies. One of these he himself 
commanded, and the other was under his older 
brother, Bartholomew, who had arrived from Spain 
during the expedition to Cuba. The Spaniards 
were clad in armor. The natives were naked and 
had no guns, and though they were far more 



ON A SEA OF TROUBLES 159 

numerous than the Europeans, they were soon 
overcome. 

One of the powerful chiefs, however, still re- 
mained unsubdued at the head of his forces in the 
interior of the island. This was the chief Caonabo, 
already mentioned as the one who had avenged his 
wrongs on the offenders at La Navidad. Soon he 
too was captured by Alonzo de Ojeda through the 
clever ruse of sending him a present. Then came 
a little more fighting, and the men who had come 
to convert the savages to Christianity obtained 
absolute control of the island of Haiti. The 
enslaved natives, we are told, wove their sorrows 
into mournful ballads which they droned out 
desolately as they tilled the fields of their harsh 
masters. 

But even with the natives subjugated there was 
still much discontent among Columbus's men. 
There being no gold to pick up and sell, by tilling 
the land only could they live ; and even to farm 
profitably takes years of experience. For every- 
thing that went wrong, they blamed the man who 
had brought them to the New World, and similarly 
his brothers who had come to help him govern. 

Whenever a ship returned to Spain the miserable 
colonists sent back letters full of bitter upbraidings 
against the man who had led them into poverty 



160 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

and hardship. Also one of the priests had gone 
home, and straight to court, to make a thousand 
complaints. The military governor who had de- 
serted the colony did the same thing, adding, 
"There is no gold in the Indies of Antilla, and all 
the Admiral said about his discoveries was mere 
sham and banter." 

We have already mentioned that, from the 
moment Columbus started on this second voyage, 
enemies at home began to do him harm. When, 
therefore, all these tales reached Spain, they fell on 
ready ears. Even Queen Isabella, who had always 
championed Columbus, had grown to see that his 
discretion and general common sense fell very far 
short of his courage and his navigating ability. 
The royal pair, therefore, decided that the whole 
matter must be investigated. 

A man who had accompanied Columbus on his 
first voyage was appointed by the monarchs to go 
as Royal Commissioner to Haiti and question 
Columbus about the condition of the colony. This 
man was selected because of his supposed kindly 
feelings to the Admiral, the latter having recom- 
mended him to the queen for excellent conduct on 
that trying first voyage. The queen, we see, thus 
endeavored to make the inquiry as easy and 



ON A SEA OF TROUBLES 161 

friendly as possible for the great navigator. But 
the Royal Commissioner, Don Juan Agnado, 
acted like many another man suddenly vested with 
authority ; he carried it with a higher hand than 
kings themselves ! Arriving at Isabella at the 
moment when the Admiral was trying to capture 
the chief Caonabo in the interior of the island, 
Agnado snubbed Bartholomew Columbus, threw 
several officials into prison, put himself at the head 
of the garrison, and announced that he was going 
inland after the Admiral ! 

On his making this show of insolent power, every 
one believed that he was to be the new governor, 
and that he had been authorized even to put 
Columbus to death. At once they gave way to 
all the meanness of their natures and, in order to 
gain favor with the new viceroy, they began 
bitterly denouncing the old. 

Columbus, who had received word of Agnado's 
advent into Isabella, hurried to meet him there. 
Seeing himself in a sorry plight, he told Agnado 
that he would immediately go back to Spain and 
answer his sovereigns' inquiries in person. This 
was in October, 1495. But all sorts of ill luck 
prevented his going. A frightful hurricane tore 
over the island and sank the four vessels which 
Agnado had brought ; then a wanderer came in 



162 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

with tales of a real gold mine in the south of the 
island and the report had to be investigated. 
Next, the several forts which had been built had 
to be strengthened and stocked with provisions ; 
so that it was not till March, 1496, that the Admi- 
ral was ready to sail. Only two caravels now re- 
mained in Isabella harbor. One of these was the 
faithful little Nina ; and on her the weary Admiral 
returned to Spain. 



CHAPTER XVI 

The Third Voyage 

Columbus's second voyage home from his 
western lands was even more stormy and threaten- 
ing than his first had been, but the little Nina 
remained stanch as ever. Besides frightful weather 
to try his soul, Columbus was taking home two 
hundred broken-down, disheartened colonists who 
could no longer endure the hardships of the New 
World. Even the prospect of going home did not 
improve their tempers. When the food ran low, 
colonists and crew threatened to kill and eat the 
captive natives in the hold. Columbus managed 
to pacify them all, however, but it must have used 
up every bit of energy in his worn body. 

When, after this tempestuous voyage, the Nina 
and the other little caravel put into Cadiz harbor 
on June n, 1496, there was more humiliation. 
Crowds collected to greet the gold gatherers ; but 
the unhappy men who crawled off the vessels were 
paupers — wrecks — mere living skeletons. The 
very sight of them brought down curses on Chris- 

163 



1 64 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

topher Columbus. The man who had dreamed of 
coming back with a ship full of gold, and being 
acclaimed by the cheers of the populace, came 
back instead with the royal displeasure hanging 
over his head and curses ringing in his ears ! 

The court was settled, at that time, in the north 
near Valladolid, and thither Columbus went to 
plead his case. All along the way he displayed his 
Indians and tropical plants and little golden orna- 
ments, but the inhabitants were less curious than 
before. In the picture of this greatest and most 
illustrious discoverer trying to gain favor with 
critical crowds by showing them a few naked 
savages and a few bits of gold, there is something 
pitiful. For Columbus knew, and the crowds 
knew, that he was in disfavor, and he was dejected 
by the fear of an unfriendly reception. 

What a relief it must have been to him when, 
instead, he found himself graciously received. Not 
a word did the sovereigns utter of their dissatis- 
faction, either over the affairs of the colony or the 
small amount of gold. He told them all about his 
trip along Cuba and the new islands found; and 
of course he could not refrain from telling them 
that just before he left Hispaniola real gold mines 
had been discovered from which they might "con- 



THE THIRD VOYAGE 165 

fidently expect large returns." They thanked him 
for his new discoveries and showed him many 
marks of favor. Instead of paying attention to 
the many complaints which had been made against 
Bartolome Colon, they told the Admiral that his 
brother might remain vice-governor for life. A 
little later they told him they would take his 
young son Fernando into the royal household and 
educate him, and after a time they began to make 
plans for a third voyage. How much better it all 
turned out than he had been led to expect from 
Agnado's conduct ! 

For his next voyage Columbus asked for eight 
ships and the sovereigns complied. More than 
three hundred men were to be sent out, paid by 
the Crown ; and as many more, if they would 
volunteer to go without pay, were promised a 
third of the gold they got out of the mines, besides 
a share in other products. 

All these fair promises, where he had been ex- 
pecting disgrace, must have lifted a load from 
Columbus's mind; but he was soon to find, as 
in years gone by, that a long time may elapse 
between promise and fulfillment. Months and 
months rolled slowly away and Columbus was still 
kept waiting in Spain. 



1 66 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

It is possible that Ferdinand and Isabella wanted 
to see what the colony could do without him ; or 
perhaps there really was no other reason than that 
given, that Spain herself needed every available 
ship at that time. First, she was sending a great 
expedition against Naples; being at war with 
France also, she needed a fleet to guard her own 
seacoast. Further, as a brilliant marriage had 
been arranged between two of the royal children 
of Spain and two of the royal children of Burgundy, 
there was extra need of ships to carry these princes, 
in suitable state, across the Bay of Biscay. Indeed, 
these various Spanish plans called not only for 
ships, but money; and yet the government man- 
aged finally to set aside six million maravedis for 
Columbus's use. Before he could begin to spend 
it, however, Ferdinand took it back again, and 
under circumstances that were very mortifying 
to the waiting Columbus. 

Just after the royal treasurer was ordered to put 
this sum at the Admiral's disposal, word came to 
court that Pedro Nino had arrived from Espanola 
with ships laden with gold ! 

"There now," cried Christopher in glee, "did I 
not tell you gold was sure to come?" 

"Well then," craftily reasoned King Ferdinand, 
"hasten you to Cadiz with an order to Pedro Nino 



THE THIRD VOYAGE 167 

to pay the government's share over to you for your 
ships, and I will keep these six million maravedis 
in my own treasury for war expenses." 

But it all turned out to be a sorry joke on the 
part of Captain Pedro Nino. His ships were full 
of slaves which, he laughingly declared, he ex- 
pected to turn into gold in the slave market. 

Thus was Columbus, weary with long waiting, 
left without any appropriation at all ; and Bishop 
Fonseca laughing at him whenever he observed 
his eagerness to be off ! 

In this quarter the impatient Admiral found much 
hindrance and no sympathy. Not only did Fon- 
seca himself exhibit indifference to Columbus's 
work, but his secretary did the same. Further- 
more, contrary to the terms of Columbus's con- 
tract, by which he was to have a monopoly of 
Indian discovery, Fonseca (on royal order, of 
course) began giving licenses to other navigators, 
and the intrepid Columbus saw his coveted prize 
slipping through his hands. 

In all matters relating to government and ad- 
ministration, Bishop Fonseca was a far wiser man 
than the great navigator. Fonseca possessed the 
best education a man could receive in that day. 
His training in the great church organization had 



1 68 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

given him skill in reading character. He soon 
saw that Columbus had but little ability outside 
of navigation ; and we wish that, instead of de- 
spising him, he had been big enough and kindly 
enough to say : " Good friend, give up all connection 
with that struggling colony of Hispaniola. Let 
me send out a more competent man than yourself 
to handle it, and do you devote your energies 
entirely to discovery. That alone shall be your 
work. Carry it as far as you can, for you are not 
young and the day will come when you can sail 
no more." 

If a sympathetic, convincing, friendly voice had 
whispered this good advice to the harassed governor 
of Espafiola, what a load of trouble it might have 
lifted from his heart. But Bishop Fonseca, un- 
fortunately, was not the man to help another in his 
hour of trouble. He merely treated Columbus 
coldly and put every sort of obstacle in his way. 

Ships and men were at last ready to sail from 
Cadiz on May 30, 1498. It happened that ten 
days before Vasco da Gama, following the Portu- 
guese track around Africa, had left the coast and 
gone across the Indian Ocean, reaching the rich 
mainland of the real India — the brilliant, civilized 
city of Calcutta. Let us be thankful for poor 



THE THIRD VOYAGE 169 

Columbus's sake that there were no cables in those 
days to\pprise him of the fact, else he might have 
felt even more keenly what a poor showing his own 
discovery had made. 

His fleet this time consisted of six vessels. They 
stopped as usual at the Canaries, then went farther 
south to the Cape Verde Islands. Thus a whole 
month passed before they were ready to cross the 
Atlantic. 

On leaving the Cape Verdes, the Admiral de- 
cided to send his best captain with three of the 
ships due west to Haiti, — this because the Isabella 
colony was in sore need of provisions. Meanwhile 
he himself would lead the other three farther south 
and discover new lands; for he had received a 
letter in Spain from a gem expert saying, "Go to 
hot lands for precious stones." 

Knowing nothing of currents and calms around 
the equator in July, he conducted his three ships 
into such a strong northern ocean current that he 
had to change his course before ever they reached 
the equator. Next they lay becalmed for eight 
days in the most cruel heat imaginable. The 
provisions were spoiling ; the men's tempers were 
spoiling, too ; and so, on the last day of July, 
judging that they must be south of the Caribbean 
Islands, Columbus gave up all thought of new in- 



170 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

vestigations and started northwest for Hispaniola. 
By the new course land was soon sighted, a much 
larger island than any of the Caribbeans. Out 
of it rose three imposing mountain peaks ; and 
accordingly it was christened La Trinidad (the 
Trinity) after the custom of religious naming that 
prevailed. 

Columbus's ships, having shrunken and cracked 
in the heat of the voyage, were much in need of 
repair. After cruising around the south and west 
shore, looking in vain for a harbor where he could 
patch up his ships and take on water, he at last 
found a suitable spot near Point Alcatraz. Here 
the necessary repairs were made, and, as the 
Spaniards worked on their boats, they could look 
across to a low strip of land in the west — the 
coast, did they but suspect it, of an unheard-of 
continent nearly as large as all Europe ! 

Thinking it another island, they sailed over to it 
when the boats were mended. The Admiral was 
suffering torture with eyestrain (small wonder, 
one would say who has seen those hundreds of 
cramped pages he wrote), so he called a reliable man 
and ordered him to conduct a party ashore and take 
possession in the name of their sovereigns. He 
himself, he said, would lie down awhile in his 
dark cabin, for the glare of the tropic sun made his 



THE THIRD VOYAGE 171 

eyes ache cruelly. That is how it happened that, on 
August 10, 1498, the Admiral lost the chance of 
putting foot on the vast mainland of South America. 

Back came the party from shore after a few hours 
to report that the natives appeared very intelligent, 
that their land was called Paria, that they wore a 
little gold which came (as usual) from "the west," 
and that they wore strings of pearls that were 
gathered a little farther south on the Paria coast. 
At last, pearls ! How it must have encouraged 
our ever hopeful Admiral ! 

So now, though they did not suspect it, the great 
continent of South America was discovered. They 
sailed south along its shore for a time, hoping to 
find the pearls, but the farther they went the 
rougher the great waves became, — mountainous, 
indeed, — forming actual lofty ridges on the sur- 
face of the sea. Of this phenomenon Columbus 
wrote home to the monarchs, "I shuddered lest 
the waters should have upset the vessel when they 
came under its bows." The rush, as we now know, 
was made partly by the delta of the Orinoco River 
and partly by the African current squeezing itself 
into the narrow space between the continent and 
the southern end of Trinidad, after which it curls 
itself into the Gulf of Mexico and comes out again 
as the Gulf Stream. 



172 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Columbus, after buffeting these dangerous waters 
as long as he could, turned north again along 
Trinidad and emerged out of the Gulf of Paria, 
leaving the pearls behind him. Instead of landing 
and looking to see if the natives spoke the truth, he 
started a hopeful letter to the sovereigns, telling 
them what rich pearl fisheries he had discovered. 
This time, however, Christopher's imagination 
really ran close to the facts, for at their next landing, 
on the island of Margarita, north of Venezuela, 
they actually bartered three pounds of large pearls 
from the natives ! Then they headed northwest 
for Haiti, reaching it the last of August, 1498. 

Nearly two and one half years had passed since 
he and Agnado had left the island in the hands of 
their successor, Bartholomew Columbus. During 
that time no change for the better had come to it. 
The mistakes on the part of officers, and the re- 
bellions on the part of the people, now made a 
longer list than ever. Not a man among them, 
from Bartholomew down to the meanest commoner, 
appeared to know how to build up a well-ordered, 
self-respecting community. The spirit of coopera- 
tion was entirely lacking. No one thought of the 
common good, only of his own interests ; and those 
in power had not been trained to handle large 
groups of men who needed wise directing. In 



THE THIRD VOYAGE 173 

those days, and especially in Spain, the general ed- 
ucation was not the sort to develop each individ- 
ual man toward self-reliance, but to make him part 
of a big organization where he need not think for 
himself, but need merely obey orders. If, then, 
those appointed to issue the orders were not men 
of wisdom and sense, things were bound to go 
wrong. Bartholomew Columbus, whom the sov- 
ereigns had appointed lord lieutenant for life, had 
not been a very wise governor, as will soon be 
apparent. 

It was only a little while before the Admiral 
sailed home with Agnado that gold mines had 
been discovered on the south coast of Espanola. 
Bartholomew was therefore instructed to take a 
certain number of men to the south coast and 
establish a seaport at the nearest suitable point 
to the mines. That was how the present town of 
Santo Domingo (now shortened into San Domingo) 
came into existence, a town that in time grew to 
be so important that it gave its name to the whole 
island. 

In order to start building San Domingo, Bartholo- 
mew, or, as he should be styled, Don Bartolome, 
took nearly all the working population out of Isa- 
bella. The only ones left were those engaged in 



174 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

building two caravels which the Admiral had 
started constructing. The men under Don Bar- 
tolome appear to have entered into building the 
new port with fairly good will; for there really 
was a little gold in the vicinity, and they had been 
promised payment for their services. If Don 
Bartolome had stuck to his post, everything might 
have gone well; but scarcely were the first few 
houses completed when he decided, most unwisely, to 
make an expedition far into the west of the island, 
where there was supposed to be a rich Indian king- 
dom called Xaragua. Of course when Bartolome 
reached Xaragua, he found the tribe to be, as usual, 
a "poor people." He could collect no golden trib- 
ute from them, and had to take their offer of prod- 
uce instead, which, he told them, they must 
have ready within a certain time. Then he rode 
off to see how the men left behind at Isabella were 
getting on. 

There, since the day when he had taken away the 
best (that is, the most industrious) men to work 
in San Domingo, those remaining had known 
nothing but misfortune. Many had died ; and of 
those left, many were ill and all were discontented. 
Unluckily, Don Bartolome was not the man to 
offer much sympathy or even to stay and put things 
in order. Instead, he left this first American 



THE THIRD VOYAGE 175 

town to its fate and started on to the second. All 
the way across the island to San Domingo he kept 
demanding tribute from the natives he passed. 
The poor creatures, though they well knew the 
malignant power of the Spaniards, determined to 
make one more attempt at resistance. The result 
was that most of them were killed or taken cap- 
tive. By this time the tribute of Xaragua was to 
be ready, and Don Bartolome went after it and did 
not continue on to the new seaport of San Domingo. 
While he was gone, his younger brother Diego 
was left in command of the eastern part of 
the island. Diego was far less of a disciplinarian 
than either Cristobal or Bartolome, and the 
Spaniards themselves now revolted. In this they 
were led by a man named Francisco Roldan whom 
the Admiral had apponted chief-justice. Roldan 
gathered about him nearly all the well men on 
the island, taking them from their work in the 
mines and on the new town. Once banded to- 
gether, these rebels rode and tramped all over the 
center of the island, stealing food wherever they 
could find it. It happened that while they were 
in the west, near the coast of those same regions 
of Xaragua where Bartholomew was, along came 
the three caravels laden with food which Columbus 
had sent direct from the Cape Verde Islands. 



176 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Columbus had instructed the commander of 
this little fleet to coast along the southern shore 
till he found the new seaport which Bartholomew 
was building ; but somehow the commander missed 
it, and sailed much farther west and into the very- 
territory where the Roldan rebels were. Knowing 
nothing of their disloyalty, he sent a large number 
of men ashore to inquire for San Domingo. These, 
as ill luck would have it, fell in with Roldan and 
his men. We may readily imagine the conversa- 
tions that ensued. 

"Don't go to the town," the malefactors warned 
the newcomers. "It is nothing but work, work, 
work, and no pay. We are supposed to be paid 
out of the gold found, but the amount is so small 
that not a grain of it ever reaches us ! Better stay 
here and go from one Indian village to another, 
taking food and golden ornaments from the 
natives." And the shore party, instead of search- 
ing for San Domingo, stayed with Roldan. 

The three caravels then continued their search, 
but never reached San Domingo till a few days 
after Columbus himself had come up from South 
America. 



CHAPTER XVII 
A Return in Disgrace 

What a discouraging state of affairs to greet the 
returning "Governor-General and Viceroy of all 
the Lands Discovered in the Western Seas!" 
What comfort were all these titles that Columbus 
stood out for so obstinately, when half his colonists 
had joined a rebel leader and the other half were 
sick and hungry ! 

By this time Roldan's army was so large that 
Christopher and his brother had to admit to each 
other that there was no chance of subduing the 
insurrection by force. In truth, there was no 
"force "; for those who were not ill, even the new- 
comers, were all grumbling against the government. 
So there was nothing to do but make a treaty with 
the rebel leader, as if he had been the lawful ruler 
of a state; and in this treaty he had everything 
his own way. Columbus had humbly to agree 
to give two vessels to carry the discontented ones 
back to Spain ; to fill these vessels with ample 
provisions, and to agree to write a letter to the 
n 177 



178 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

monarchs stating that Roldan and his men were 
in no way to blame for the trouble. Here was 
humiliation indeed ! Fancy a high official of the 
Crown being forced to such an undignified treaty 
with one who had rebelled against his authority ! 

But even this did not end the trouble. Colum- 
bus could not get the vessels ready in time, and so 
the malefactors became more vexatious than ever. 
Later another treaty was made, still more humili- 
ating to the Admiral, for he had to promise, first, 
that those of Roldan's men who were most anxious 
to return should be sent to Spain immediately ; 
second, that those who chose to remain should 
receive gifts of land and houses ; third, that he, 
Columbus, would issue a public proclamation 
stating that all that had happened had been 
caused by the false reports of bad men ; and fourth, 
that Roldan the leader should remain chief-justice 
for the rest of his life ! Roldan now condescended 
to return to San Domingo and sit in the judge's 
seat. 

No sooner was this turbulent leader appeased 
than another rebel arose. This time, sad to say, 
it was the brave Alonzo de Ojeda. Because he had 
succeeded in taking the chief Caonabo prisoner, 
Columbus had rewarded and honored him by mak- 
ing him captain of a voyage of discovery among the 



A RETURN IN DISGRACE 179 

islands. All this time, no doubt, Ojeda was loyal 
to his Admiral ; but he had recently made a trip 
home to Spain, where, from his friend Bishop 
Fonseca, he had learned many things, false as 
well as true, that poisoned his mind against his 
great leader. So he in turn gathered the discon- 
tented into a threatening band. 

"I have word from Spain," he told them, "that 
our good queen lies dying. She is the only friend 
Cristobal Colon has ; and you may be sure that 
the minute she is dead I can easily arrange to have 
her favorite removed if you will all rally around 
me." Many, of course, lent ear to his treacherous 
talk, and these had many a skirmish with the few 
who were faithful to Columbus. 

Ojeda, besides sneering at and opposing the 
Admiral's authority, wrote letters back to Fonseca 
telling him all sorts of unfavorable things concern- 
ing Columbus and his brothers. All the rebels, in 
truth, were sending back complaints, for the old 
and the new world sent little packet ships monthly. 
What they did not write was told in Spain by those 
of Roldan's men whom Columbus had sent home. 
Some indeed went straight to the king himself 
with their stories, with the result that the queen 
had to agree with her husband, who had never been 
much interested in Columbus and his savages, 



180 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

that the whole matter must be thoroughly investi- 
gated. 

Yet, even after consenting to court-martial 
Columbus, as it were, the queen delayed the pro- 
ceeding as long as possible, as if trying to give her 
viceroy time to straighten out his situation. But 
sad tales of misrule still kept coming from Espanola, 
and finally, after more than a year of waiting, 
the monarchs sent out Don Francisco de Bobadilla 
(Boba-deel'ya) with a letter that began : — 

Don Cristobal Colon, our Admiral of the Ocean : 

We have ordered the Comendador Francisco de Boba- 
dilla, the bearer of this, that he speak to you on our part 
certain things which he will tell you. We pray you give 
him faith and credence, and act accordingly. 

Christopher, however, was not permitted to give 
the royal commissioner faith and credence, for 
the simple reason that Bobadilla did not show him 
the letter. We have already read of the high- 
handed manner in which Juan de Agnado acted 
some years before when sent out to investigate ; 
but, by comparison with Bobadilla, Agnado had 
been gentleness itself. Bobadilla was a stern and 
rigorous churchman, comendador, or commander, 
of one of the famous religious-military orders in 
Spain. He could tolerate nothing short of the 



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Photographed by Arthur Byne. 
A Famous Prophecy. 

In this picture is shown Seneca's famous prophecy, " A time will come in 
the course of centuries when the ocean will cease to limit the world, when the 
seas will permit new lands to be revealed, and when Iceland [Ultima Thule] 
will no longer be the extremity of the world." 

The little square of blurred writing is the work of Columbus's son, Fer- 
nando, who added these words, 

" This prophecy was fulfilled by my father, the Admiral Christopher 
Columbus, in 1492." 



A RETURN IN DISGRACE 181 

strictest and most unquestioning obedience to 
authority. He also had a great respect for high 
birth, and he, like Bishop Fonseca, could never 
forget that Christopher Columbus was of humble 
origin. Both Fonseca and Bobadilla would have 
been astounded had they dreamed that their 
principal claim to remembrance by coming ages 
would be from their reluctant association with a 
certain illustrious man "of humble origin." 

It was on August 23, 1499, that Bobadilla's 
ship entered the mouth of the little river on which 
San Domingo was situated ; and on seeing on 
either side of the settlement a gallows, and on 
either gallows the body of a high-born Spaniard 
lately executed for rebellion, the sight did not 
incline him to feel kindly toward the low-born 
governor who had executed them. Columbus and 
his brother Bartholomew were in the interior at the 
time, and Bobadilla had no intention of awaiting 
their return, so eager was he to show his power. 

Next morning, when all the colony had gathered 
in church for mass, he read them the royal letter 
authorizing him to inquire into the administra- 
tion of the Viceroy. The letter stated that their 
Majesties empowered Bobadilla to seize evil-doers 
and their property, and that the Admiral and all 
others in authority must aid him in doing so. 



1 82 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Columbus had left his brother Diego in charge of 
the colony; and Diego, though weak as a ruler, 
was strong in words when Bobadilla ordered him 
to hand over the remainder of the rebels for trial, 
together with evidence against them. Diego 
replied that the prisoners were held by order of 
the viceroy, and that the viceroy's authority was 
higher than the comendador's. Such an answer 
was not likely to mollify the royal commissioner. 

The next morning after mass he opened a second 
letter and read it to the colonists, a letter which 
the monarchs told him to open only in case Colum- 
bus refused to submit to him. This document 
proclaimed the bearer, Don Francisco Bobadilla, 
governor of all the islands. He immediately took 
the oath of office, and then opened and read to the 
astonished populace a third royal letter in which 
Christopher Columbus was commanded to hand 
over all papers and property belonging to the 
Crown. 

The discontented colonists saw that the day of 
reckoning had come for their unpopular governor. 
They exulted in it; and Bobadilla, who realized 
the satisfactory impression he was making, then 
and there opened a fourth letter which commanded 
that he, Bobadilla, should straightway pay all 
arrears of wages to the men who had worked on 



A RETURN IN DISGRACE 183 

San Domingo. As nearly all the men had gone 
unpaid for a long time past (owing to utter lack of 
funds), when they heard this last proclamation, 
they hailed Bobadilla as a benefactor, and his 
narrow, mean soul swelled with pride. 

To be sure, the monarchs really had issued all 
these letters ; but Bobadilla was to read and act 
upon the second and third letters only in case 
Columbus refused to obey the first; and here, 
without giving Columbus any opportunity to 
speak for himself, Bobadilla had gone to the ex- 
treme limit of his powers. It makes one recall 
Shakespeare's lines about 

"Man, proud man, 
Drest in a little brief authority . . . 
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, 
As make the angels weep." 

By the end of the second day the new governor 
had seized the Admiral's house. Next he sent a 
search party to find the two brothers and bid them 
return. This Christopher and Bartholomew did 
at once ; and Bobadilla, whose noble birth had not 
given him a noble soul, treated the grumblers and 
talebearers of San Domingo to the shameful sight 
of the Discoverer of the New World marching in 
chains to prison ! 



1 84 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

While Columbus had not been a successful ruler, 
it must be borne in mind that the men he was ex- 
pected to rule were a most ungovernable lot. But 
even so, it is difficult to believe that among them 
all there was not one big enough to forget that 
the man who had been an unsatisfactory colonial 
governor had been the bravest explorer ever 
known. But no, they were pitiless. His own 
cook was ordered to fasten the chains on him. The 
onlookers exulted in his disgrace ; and their out- 
cries were so loud and so bitter that Columbus and 
his brothers expected every moment to be put to 
death. 

Bobadilla lost no time in deciding what to do 
with his prisoners. They must be put out of the 
way, but not by death. Instead, he ordered a 
nobleman named Villejo to take them at once to 
Spain. When Villejo, with some soldiers, entered 
the cell in order to remove the prisoners to the 
ship, Columbus thought he was to be escorted to 
the scaffold. "I see I am to die," he said calmly. 
Villejo, who seems to have been the only man in 
San Domingo with an ounce of humanity in him, 
answered kindly, "I am to escort you to a ship, 
Your Excellency, and then home to Spain." 

As they marched to the shore, a rabble followed, 
shouting every insult imaginable. And thus did 



A RETURN IN DISGRACE 185 

Christopher Columbus sail away, for the third 
time, from the island which he had found so quiet 
and peaceful that he once wrote, "The nights are 
lovely, like May nights in Cordova." Here was 
a change indeed ! 

When the caravel was under way, Villejo offered 
to remove the Admiral's shackles. 

"No," answered Columbus, with dignity, "their 
Majesties gave Bobadilla authority to put me in 
irons ; they alone must issue the authority to take 
the irons off." 

And so in irons the greatest discoverer the world 
has ever known made his sixth crossing of the 
Atlantic. And in irons he landed in Cadiz in 
November, 1500. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

Public Sympathy 

We have just seen Columbus land in chains at 
Cadiz. We next see him free, traveling in great 
splendor to that scene of his first successful inter- 
view with Isabella — Granada. What had hap- 
pened meanwhile to lift him out of misery and 
disgrace? Simply what always happens when a 
really great man is too harshly punished, a reaction 
in the public mind. 

In all Spain Columbus had hardly a friend ; yet 
when the people of Cadiz saw him leave Villejo's 
ship in chains, they were moved with deepest 
sympathy. They began telling each other that, 
no matter what his faults might be, he had been 
the first man deliberately to put out across the 
dreaded Atlantic and reveal to the world that 
land, and not monsters, lay on the other side. Had 
any one else ever begged, during seven years, for 
the privilege thus to risk his life for the benefit of 
Spain in particular, and all mankind in general? 
Even the Portuguese, greatest of exploring nations, 

1 86 



PUBLIC SYMPATHY 187 

had only hugged the African coast cautiously ; but 
this man had sailed straight away from land into 
the setting sun. Even landsmen appreciated the 
fine courage that required. 

And the first man bold enough to wish to go out 
and unravel the mystery of the west now walked 
in chains from a Spanish ship to a Spanish prison ! 
It was monstrous ingratitude, all declared ; and 
they did not hesitate to show their sympathy. 
The story of his disgrace traveled rapidly, and 
everywhere it brought out the better nature of the 
Spanish people, who accordingly denounced this 
harsh treatment by their sovereigns. 

And what had Columbus himself done to help 
matters along? The wisest thing that he could 
have done; he had refrained from writing to 
Ferdinand and Isabella. His silence spoke in his 
favor ; for they did not learn what had happened 
till a lady-in-waiting at court, a friend of Columbus 
and of the queen, received a letter which Columbus 
had written during the voyage, and which the good 
Villejo sent off by a trusty messenger the minute 
the ship reached Spain. This lady carried the 
shocking news to the queen, perhaps even read the 
whole letter to her; if so, Isabella must have 
winced at this passage: "I have been wounded 
extremely by the fact that a man should have \>een 



1 88 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

sent out to make inquiry into my conduct who 
knew that if he sent home a very aggravated ac- 
count against me, he could remain himself at the 
head of the government." 

Hardly had the queen heard this letter when 
there came a report from Villejo containing the 
same story of Bobadilla's brutal haste in dealing 
with the Admiral. And directly after this came 
an inquiry from the alcalde (mayor) of Cadiz ask- 
ing what he should do with his distinguished 
prisoner. 

Isabella saw it was all too true ; Boba.dilla had 
gone to the uttermost limit of authority without 
even waiting to try less offensive measures. She 
saw that she had selected a very unworthy person 
for the delicate task of removing a great man from 
office. Even Ferdinand, who, as we have seen, had 
no great opinion of Columbus, was grieved over 
the unhappy affair. Immediately they dispatched 
a courier to the alcalde with instructions to set the 
Admiral free, and to treat him with every consider- 
ation. Then they invited Columbus to come to 
them at court, and ordered a credit of two thousand 
ducats for him, a large sum in those days, for it 
was equal to about ten thousand' dollars in our 
money. This they did without even waiting to 
hear Bobadilla's side of the story. 



PUBLIC SYMPATHY 189 

Columbus reached Granada in December, 1500; 
nine years precisely after the memorable journey 
that Friar Juan Perez had caused him to make to 
the same place. As on his return from the second 
voyage, when he was expecting royal reproaches, 
he received instead only the kindest treatment. 
Both Ferdinand and Isabella made him feel, in- 
stantly, that, whatever had gone wrong, they 
knew his worth and considered him a distinguished 
man. 

So overcome was he by this magnanimity that it 
was some minutes before the white-haired, worn- 
out man could control his feelings sufficiently to 
tell his story. Finally, however, he managed to 
speak. He admitted all that had gone amiss in 
Espanola and said his only excuse was his inex- 
perience in governing. (Ah, good Admiral, if only 
you had remembered your inexperience on that 
January day in that same city of Granada, when 
you insisted on being made Viceroy of all the lands 
you might discover !) 

The queen, while she pitied Columbus profoundly 
in his distress, was too wise a woman to let her pity 
run away with her prudence; so she answered 
cautiously : — 

''Common report accuses you of acting with a 
degree of severity quite unsuitable for an infant 



ioo CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

colony, and likely to incite rebellion in it. But 
the thing I find hardest to pardon is your reducing 
to slavery many Indians who had done nothing to 
deserve such a fate. This was contrary to my 
express orders. As ill fortune willed it, just at 
the time that news came to me of this breach of 
my instructions, everybody was complaining of 
you ; no one spoke a word in your favor. I felt 
obliged to send a commissioner to the Indies to 
investigate and give me a true report, and, if 
necessary, to put limits to the authority you were 
accused of overstepping. If he found you guilty 
of the charges against you, he was to relieve you 
of the government and send you to Spain to give 
an account of your stewardship. This was the 
extent of his commission. I find that I have 
made a bad choice in my agent, and I shall take 
care to make an example of Bobadilla so as to 
warn others not to exceed their power. But I 
cannot promise at once to reinstate you as gov- 
ernor. As to your rank of Admiral, I never intended 
to deprive you of it. But you must abide your 
time and trust in me." 

Isabella's reply is a model of fairness and pru- 
dence so far as Columbus is concerned, but it is 
hardly fair to Bobadilla. The comendador had 
been brutal, it is true ; but it was not true that he 



PUBLIC SYMPATHY 191 

had gone beyond the extent of his commission. 
His brutality consisted in pouncing upon the 
offender without any preliminaries whatever. Yet 
it turned out that, in acting thus, he did the best 
possible thing for Columbus's subsequent treat- 
ment. There is no doubt that had he proceeded 
slowly, with a fair and formal inquiry into all the 
complaints against the Admiral, it would have 
been clearly shown that, from the very beginning, 
everything had gone wrong in the colony. The 
Indians, once friendly, were now bitter against the 
Spaniards. The colonists were a bad lot, but 
Columbus himself had examined and accepted 
most of them before the ships left Spain. 

If mistakes were committed while he was 
absent exploring Cuba, they were made by his 
brothers and by those whom he himself had se- 
lected to rule in his absence. All of this evidence 
would have been against Columbus, who in conse- 
quence would have been deposed as governor and 
sent home to answer Bobadilla's charges before a 
royal court of inquiry. Arriving as a man dis- 
graced after a fair trial, nobody's sympathies would 
have been stirred. It was precisely because Boba- 
dilla had acted like a brute instead of like a wise 
judge that everybody denounced him and pitied 
his victim. 



192 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Considering all this, and considering that Colum- 
bus himself had admitted his "inexperience in 
government" to the queen, it is astonishing to 
learn that he was deeply hurt because she did not 
reinstate him instantly as ruler of the island ! Ex- 
perience had taught the great discoverer but little. 
At a moment when he should have fallen on his 
knees in thankfulness because he would never 
again have to be responsible for that colony of 
vicious men, he instead felt hurt ! He wanted to 
return and start the whole sorry business over 
again. Moreover, he protested, as indeed he had 
been doing for years, because other navigators 
were imploring the monarchs to break their con- 
tract giving him a monopoly of western exploration, 
and to allow them to undertake voyages, asking 
no government assistance whatsoever. Now was 
the time for him to say, "It is to Spain's interest 
that she send as many explorers as possible over to 
these new lands, in order that we may quickly 
determine how many islands there really are, and 
whether what I last visited was the mainland; 
only, pray let me hasten back free from every 
responsibility except that of a navigator; so that 
I, who so justly deserve the first chance of explor- 
ing the new lands, may get there ahead of these 
others who are clamoring to go." 



PUBLIC SYMPATHY 193 

Had Columbus been businesslike enough to 
make this proposition to the monarchs, he need 
not have died in ignorance of the prodigious fact 
that he had discovered a great continent un- 
dreamed-of by Europeans. But, instead of re- 
nouncing his monopoly, he complained that licenses 
had been granted to others to sail west in violation 
of the agreement that he alone, and his descend- 
ants after him, should sail among the new lands. 
This attitude annoyed King Ferdinand exceed- 
ingly. 

For Columbus to hope to keep this monopoly in 
his own family was madness ; as by this time 
other countries, having heard of his opening up 
the way, had sent out explorers to plant their 
standards. John and Sebastian Cabot had gone 
out from Bristol, England, to Newfoundland, and 
had discovered, in June, 1497, the North American 
continent before Columbus had touched South 
America. Early in 1499 one °f the pilots who had 
accompanied Columbus on his Cuban trip secured 
a license, and not only explored the Central Amer- 
ican coast for several hundred miles, but traded 
his European trifles and gewgaws with the natives 
for gold and silver, returning to Spain with real 
profits. 



194 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

That same year, 1499, Vicente Pinzon of Palos, 
who with his brother Martin had made the first 
voyage, also secured a license and sailed southwest 
over the equator, discovering the Amazon River 
and taking possession of Brazil for Spain. Our 
adventurous acquaintance Ojeda also had been 
busy. When the Paria pearls arrived in Sevilla, 
he asked his friend Fonseca to show him both the 
pearls and Columbus's map of Trinidad and the 
neighboring coast. Although Ojeda had recently 
been in open rebellion against the Admiral in Haiti, 
as we have seen, Fonseca did not hesitate to let him 
see where the pearl land lay ; and so Ojeda, with 
an Italian named Vespucci, whom we shall meet 
later, sailed to Paria and gathered its wealth. 

Also, in this year so great for navigation, a 
Portuguese fleet of thirteen ships set out from 
Lisbon to round the Cape of Good Hope. In 
trying to escape the long calms which had beset 
Bartolome Dias in the Gulf of Guinea, Pedro 
Cabral, commander of the fleet, struck out quite 
far from the Morocco coast and got into the 
Equatorial Current. The existence of this power- 
ful westward current had never been suspected 
by either Spanish or Portuguese mariners. Wind 
and current combining, Cabral and his captains 
found themselves, in about a month's time, on the 



PUBLIC SYMPATHY 195 

coast of Brazil near the present Rio de Janeiro. 
Thus a current never before known carried them 
to land never before known. And thus for the 
second time, if the shipwrecked pilot told the 
truth, America was discovered by accident. 

All this had given Europe some idea of the 
vastness of the world to the west. If Columbus 
was to bring his own discoveries to a glorious 
finish, it was high time that, instead of quibbling 
over maintaining a contract, he should have given 
up the empty honors that were to have been his, 
and have asked only for permission to hurry back 
and discover more land. 

Ferdinand, who now saw that the islands would 
need not one but a dozen governors if ever they 
were to be colonized and developed, would not 
hear of reinstating Columbus as governor. The 
most the monarchs would give him in the way of 
satisfaction was that Bobadilla should be removed 
and another man, who had had nothing to do thus 
far with the quarrels of the New World, should be 
appointed for two years. This new governor, 
whose name was Nicolas de Ovando, was specially 
instructed to protect Columbus's profits in the 
colony, if profits there should ever be. Orders 
were given that the property of Columbus and his 
brothers, which Bobadilla had confiscated, was to 



196 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

be restored; and whenever gold was found and 
smelted, Columbus's share was to be put aside for 
him. This proved that the sovereigns intended 
to be just to Columbus, but the latter was never- 
theless much depressed over his lost dignities. 

The Comendador Ovando, of the famous re- 
ligious order called the Knights of Alcantara, was 
appointed to succeed Bobadilla, and began his 
preparations with certain definite and practical 
ideas on the subject of colonizing. He was the 
first to see that respectable married men with their 
wives and children were needed to give the settle- 
ment character ; so he offered, or asked the sover- 
eigns to offer, proper inducement to married men. 
He also secured as many trained workers as 
possible — artisans and craftsmen. His other 
measures appear less wise ; that is, he felt he must 
go in state and dignity, else the people would not 
regard his authority; so he took many body ser- 
vants and house servants, and rich priestly robes, 
for he relied a great deal on the appearance of 
power. No less than thirty-five vessels would 
suffice to carry his twenty-five hundred passengers 
(among them Bartolome de las Casas) to San 
Domingo ; and when he started in all his state, the 
heart of Columbus was sad and sore. 



PUBLIC SYMPATHY 197 

"Ah," thought he, "if only I had had decent 
men, instead of jail-birds and loafers!" and he 
pondered sadly on his many misfortunes. 

And still the monarchs kept him waiting and 
would not furnish him with a fleet. While he was 
waiting came the bitter and disquieting news that 
Portuguese explorers were returning in a stream 
from the Indian Ocean with exceedingly rich car- 
goes, all justly traded for in the markets of Cal- 
cutta. Why, he groaned, had his India been so 
barren of riches? 

He began to ponder over all the theories he had 
read concerning the geography of the world, and 
to wonder what his discoveries might really be. 
If it dawned upon him that he had struck islands 
fringing on absolutely new, unsuspected land, he 
appears to have dismissed the extraordinary idea, 
and to have come back to Martin Alonzo Pinzon's 
theory that he, by sailing west over the globe, had 
come to Asiatic regions. It must be so, he argued. 
Marco Polo had made known the fact that an 
ocean bounded Asia on the east, and that ocean 
must be the Atlantic, which continued across to 
Europe. The Indian Ocean which the Portuguese 
had crossed must be the southern part of the 
Atlantic, where it curved around Asia's southern 
shores. Ah, if only he could reach it ! If only he 



198 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

had sailed straight for the rich mainland, instead 
of wasting his time on those pretty islands, in- 
habited only by a "poor people" ! 

He began to recall how the land north of the 
Gulf of Paria stretched far west ; how the south- 
ern shore of Cuba stretched far west; how the 
currents of the Caribbean Sea indicated, by the 
fact that they had washed Cuba, Haiti, and 
Porto Rico into their long narrow east-and-west 
shape that somewhere in the west they passed 
through a strait which separated some large island 
from southeastern Asia ; and that strait must lead 
into the Indian Ocean — the very ocean the Portu- 
guese were now sailing so profitably ! He wisely 
resolved to linger no longer in Spain, importuning 
for his lost governorship, but to undertake a fourth 
voyage and find this passage. i 

Good reasoning, all this about "the strait," if 
only facts had been geographically correct ; and a 
brave determination, too, for an old man afflicted 
with rheumatism and fever and bad sight to re- 
solve to put out once more on that boisterous 
ocean. We salute you, Don Cristobal ! You are 
a true navigator, never afraid of hardships and 
labor and perplexing problems. Even had you 
not discovered America for us, we still would salute 
you, because you were a tremendous worker ! 



PUBLIC SYMPATHY 199 

Full of his new plan, Columbus left beautiful 
Granada where he had spent two empty years and 
went to Sevilla. King Ferdinand readily granted 
him four ships, for the Admiral Cristobal Colon, 
off on a voyage of discovery, was not nearly so 
troublesome as the deposed governor and viceroy, 
lingering around the court to obtain his lost title 
and revenues. 

The fitting out of the ships restored his spirits 
considerably. Whenever Christopher had to do 
with boats and sea preparations he was in his 
element. He now grew optimistic, and, with his 
usual fatal habit of promising great results, he told 
his Sevilla acquaintances that he expected to cir- 
cumnavigate the world. Fatal habit, yes ; but it 
meant that he still kept that rich imagination, with- 
out which he never would have made his first 
voyage. 

Meanwhile, he realized that he was getting old, 
and that he might never come back from this trip. 
His thoughts often turned to his native Genoa, 
where he had played so happily as a child in the 
Vico Dritto di Ponticello ; so, one day he sat 
down and generously wrote to the authorities of 
Genoa that, should his claims against the Spanish 
Crown ever be settled, a part of his money was to 
be used in paying the Genoese tax on wheat and 



200 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

wine, so that the poor might buy these two staples 
at a lower price. 

Finally all was ready; four small, weather- 
beaten ships ; a crew of one hundred and fifty men 
and boys ; a few months' provisions. His brother 
Bartholomew, not very willingly, and his son 
Fernando, almost too eagerly, accompanied him. 
This, his fourth and last voyage, started from 
Cadiz on May 9, 1502. 



CHAPTER XIX 

The Last Voyage 

Fernando Columbus, though only a lad of 
fourteen, noted every new experience with intelli- 
gent delight. He had his father's passion for 
writing things down. As it was the result of per- 
sonal observation, Fernando's account of the fourth 
voyage may be accepted as more reliable than 
many other items he has left us concerning the 
Admiral's history. 

Among other things, Fernando says that the 
little fleet intended starting its search at the 
outlet of the Gulf of Paria, and then following the 
land west until they came to the straits leading 
into the Indian Ocean; but while approaching 
the Caribbean Islands, his father discovered that 
one of the vessels was in need of repairs; for 
which reason he headed for San Domingo, where 
he hoped to purchase a better caravel. 

As Columbus had been told not to stop there 
till his return trip, he sent one of the faster ships 
ahead with a letter to Governor Ovando, ex- 



202 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

plaining that he wanted to buy another ship, and 
also that he was seeking protection from a hurri- 
cane that he saw approaching. Knowing the 
peculiarities of weather in those regions, he was so 
sure of the storm that he advised Ovando to hold 
back any vessels that might be about to depart for 
Spain. 

Our weather-wise old Admiral was not mistaken 
in his prophecy. A furious West Indian hurricane 
broke on the last day of June ; but his poor little 
ships, instead of lying safe in the shelter of San 
Domingo harbor, were exposed to all the ravages 
of the storm. Why? Because Ovando had re- 
fused to let him enter the port ! A cruel insult ; 
but the Admiral was too busy just then to brood 
over it. He must hastily draw in under the lee of 
the land and wait for the hurricane to pass. 

It was not the sort that passed, for it stayed 
and stayed till it was worn out by its own fury. 
"Eighty-eight days," Columbus wrote to his 
sovereign, "did this fearful tempest continue, 
during which I was at sea and saw neither sun nor 
stars. My ships lay exposed with sails torn ; and 
anchors, cables, rigging, boats, and a quantity of 
provisions lost. . . . Other tempests have I ex- 
perienced, but none of so long duration or so fright- 
ful as this." 



THE LAST VOYAGE 203 

And all this perilous time, when men and vessels 
narrowly escaped going to the bottom, the dis- 
coverer of the New World was denied the privilege 
of the only seaport in it ! It makes one's blood 
boil, even to-day, to think that at San Domingo 
the Comendador Ovando and the whole group of 
ungrateful landsmen went safely to bed every 
night in the very houses that they had hated 
Columbus for making them build, while he was 
lashing about on the furious waves, thinking his 
other three ships lost, and expecting every minute 
a similar fate for his own ! 

The eighty-eight days, fortunately, were not 
continuously stormy; there were occasional lulls. 
It was the end of June when Columbus had asked 
for shelter; not till the middle of July did the 
first clear weather come. Then the scattered, 
battered boats reunited as by a miracle, and found 
themselves near the "Queen's Garden" islands 
south of Cuba. Let us leave them there patching 
their boats and enjoying a bit of sunshine while 
we see what has been happening at ungrateful 
San Domingo. 

Ovando had been on the island a month and a 
half when Columbus came along asking permission 
to land. Whether this was refused through the 



204 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

new governor's ugly nature alone, or whether he 
believed Columbus's prophecy of bad weather 
merely an excuse to land, is not known. Certain 
it is that, although the Spanish monarchs thought 
San Domingo could get along better without the 
Admiral, they never intended him to be turned 
off when a violent hurricane was pending. Ovando 
evidently did not believe in the hurricane ; besides, 
he did not want Columbus to find out that the new 
governors were managing no better than he had 
managed. In this respect there was nothing to 
be proud of, else Ovando would surely have be- 
lieved in the hurricane. Bobadilla had been a 
miserable failure ; and he himself had not been 
there long enough to make any improvements, 
except the detestable one of sending for African 
negroes to replace Indian slaves ! 

One thing, however, had turned out a little 
better than any one expected, and that was the 
gold mine near which the town of San Domingo 
had been built. When Columbus's warning about 
the storm came, eighteen caravels lay in the harbor 
ready to start for Spain with eighteen hundred- 
weight of gold. One nugget alone, Las Casas tells 
us, weighed thirty-five pounds. Out of all this 
treasure, Columbus's share was forty pounds, and 
that was set aside and loaded on the poorest, 



THE LAST VOYAGE 205 

leakiest caravel of the lot, called The Needle, to be 
sent to Spain and to remain there until he should 
appear to claim it. 

Ovando, like Columbus, wanted the colony to ap- 
pear profitable in the eyes of the monarchs, and 
was eager to start off this first golden cargo, also 
all the spoils he had filched from the natives since 
his arrival. Then, too, the Comendador Bobadilla 
was already aboard, and Ovando was eager to be 
rid of him and also of Francisco Roldan, who never 
had been, and never could be, of use in any colony ; 
so Ovando, when he read Columbus's warning, 
threw back his head and exclaimed, "Nonsense! 
Let them start just the same!" 

And start they did ; and scarcely were the vessels 
out of sight when the hurricane broke. Of the 
eighteen ships only one ever got to Spain. Three 
returned much damaged to San Domingo. The 
others went down. The one vessel that reached 
Spain was the leaky little tub called The Needle, 
laden with the Admiral's gold ! Thus the same 
storm that sent many of his San Domingo enemies 
to a watery grave saved for him the first profits 
he received from the island. It would be some 
satisfaction to learn that Ovando was rebuked for 
his cruelty and stupidity; but there is no record 
of such a reprimand. Perhaps no one even knew 



206 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

that Ovando had been warned. As for the whole- 
sale shipwreck, people merely looked at such things 
piously in those days, and said, "It is the will of 
Heaven!" 

When the first lull came in that devastating 
storm, Columbus found himself south of Cuba 
among the little " Garden " group. It was the third 
time he had had a chance to sail along the Cuban 
coast and discover whether it really was an island, 
as the natives said, or whether it was the mainland, 
as he had forced his sailors to swear while on the 
Cuban voyage when his brain was full of fever. 
Again he let the problem go unsolved ; the object 
of this fourth voyage was to find tjie straits leading 
into the Indian Ocean. Having failed to begin 
his search from Trinidad by following South 
America westward, as originally planned, he ex- 
pected he would come to the straits by following 
Cuba's southern shore in the same direction, if 
Cuba, as he hoped, was a great strip of land pro- 
jecting eastward from the continent. And yet, 
instead of sailing along Cuba, or returning to the 
Gulf of Paria and hugging the land westward, he 
suddenly decided to put out southwest into the 
open sea. This seems to us a foolish course, for no 
matter at what point he struck land, how would he 
know whether to explore to the left or right for his 



THE LAST VOYAGE 207 

straits? Why this least desirable of three courses 
was taken neither the Admiral nor his son explained 
in their diaries. Of course he found land, — the 
Honduras coast ; but of course he had no means of 
knowing what relation it had either to Cuba or to 
the land around the Gulf of Paria. Thus the poor 
Admiral lost his last chance of arriving at any just 
conclusions of the magnitude of his discovery. 

Before reaching this Honduras coast they stopped 
at the Isle of Pines, where they saw natives in com- 
fortable-looking house boats ; that is, huge canoes 
sixty feet long, cut from a single mahogany tree, 
and with a roofed caboose amidships. These 
natives wore plenty of gold ornaments and woven 
clothing; they had copper hatchets and sharp 
blades of flint ; and they used a sort of money for 
buying and selling. In other words, it was the 
nearest approach to civilization that Columbus had 
ever seen in his new lands. He tried by signs to 
ask about all these things, and the natives pointed 
west as the place from which their house boat had 
come. But so keen was Columbus for "the 
straits" to the Indian Ocean that even gold could 
not divert him this time ; he refused to proceed due 
west, and thus failed to discover Mexico, the richest 
region the Spaniards were ever to find on the 
North American continent. 



208 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

From the Isle of Pines, the Admiral put out 
again into the open sea, southwest, and the moment 
he had cleared land terrific storms were encountered. 
Worse still, when he neared the coast which he 
named Honduras, the currents were so violent 
that his boats could hardly make headway against 
them. All July and August thunder and lightning 
were incessant. Timbers creaked and strained 
till each minute it appeared as if they must have 
reached the breaking point. Meanwhile the Ad- 
miral was enduring the tortures of rheumatism 
and could not leave his bed; and so, up on deck 
where the gales and the waves swept free, he ordered 
them to rig a little cabin of sailcloth ; there he 
lay and directed every move of his crew. One 
minute he saw his terrified seamen clinging to 
masts or slipping over wet decks ; another, hauling 
in the mere shreds of sails that were left. One 
minute he heard them vowing pilgrimages and 
penances if only they might be saved ; another, 
denouncing the madman who brought them to 
these terrible waters. 

But the sick man did not heed all this; his 
business was to bring them out alive if possible; 
so he kept a clear head and issued his orders. 
Whenever he became discouraged, he looked across 
the wave-washed decks to the comforting sight of 



THE LAST VOYAGE 209 

a slender lad of fourteen, brought up delicately at 
court, but now turning to with a will and helping 
the sailors with every rough, heavy task. How 
proud the Admiral must have felt when he wrote 
in his journal, "It was as if Fernando had been at 
sea eighty years !" 

At last they rounded a point where better weather 
greeted them, and in thankfulness Columbus called 
it Cape Gracias a Dios (Thanks to God). But 
straightway came another blow. On the very first 
day when they could catch their breath and cease 
struggling against wind and current and rain, 
their spirits were again dashed. A rowboat 
went near the mouth of a river to take on fresh 
water, and the river came out with a gush, upset 
the boat, and drowned the men in it. So our 
sick Admiral, who was drawing a map of the 
coast, and had just finished writing "Thanks to 
God," marks down the rushing river and names it 
"Rio de Desastre" (River of Disaster). 

Just below Gracias Cape the current divided 
into two, one part flowing west, the other south ; 
this latter was followed. Sailing down the Mos- 
quito Coast they came, toward the end of Septem- 
ber, to a pleasant spot which Columbus called 
"The Garden," or El Jardin (pronounced Khar- 



210 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

deen'), and where the natives appeared to be more 
intelligent than any he had yet seen. Continuing 
south, he came to Caribaro Bay, where the people 
wore many flat ornaments of beaten gold. As if 
they could detect, from afar, the gold lust in the 
European eye, the poor creatures brandished their 
weapons to keep the strange-looking visitors from 
landing ; but it was of no avail. Land they did, 
and traded seventeen gold disks for just three 
tinkly bells ! The voyagers asked, of course, 
where the gold came from, and were told from 
Veragua, a little farther south. For once the sign 
language was correctly understood. Veragua ac- 
tually existed. The Spaniards found it just west 
of the Isthmus of Darien. 

Here plenty more gold was seen. " In two days," 
wrote Columbus, "I saw more indications of 
near-by gold mines than I had seen in four years 
in Hispaniola." Not only did he see the precious 
metal, but he heard that "ten days inland" lived 
tribes who possessed quantities of gold and silver. 
And then the natives spoke of something far more 
wonderful, had Columbus but known it, than gold ; 
for they said, also, that ten days' tramp westward 
lay a vast sea. This, Columbus concluded, must 
be the immense river Ganges ; and his tired brain 
began figuring how, by a little "tramping west," 



THE LAST VOYAGE 211 

and a little river boating, and then some more 
tramping, a Spaniard could get from Darien back 
to Spain, provided the Moslems did not murder 
him on the way ! 

But he was not seeking for gold on this trip. 
He did not march ten days inland. He turned 
a deaf ear to it and to all his importuning crew and 
went searching for his "strait"; by which stead- 
fastness of purpose he just missed discovering 
the Pacific Ocean. It has been said that Fate 
was always a little niggardly with Columbus, and 
never was it truer than at this moment when she 
at last deafened his ear to the tale of gold and sent 
him south. 

All November and December he continued 
coasting along South America. But his greedy 
crew could never forget the sight of those Veragua 
natives actually smelting gold. The men became 
sulky and clamored to go back ; and furthermore, 
the ships were too worm-eaten and too covered with 
barnacles to proceed. On December 5, in order to 
take the gold-seekers back to Darien, he reluctantly 
gave over his search for the passage to the Indian 
Ocean. But the minute he turned north new 
gales began to blow. These continued so furiously 
that in a whole month they progressed barely a 
hundred miles. All this time they were nearly 



212 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

starved ; about the only provisions left were their 
rotten biscuits and these were, as Fernando tells 
us, so disgusting to look upon that "many waited 
till night to eat their sop." 

At last the famished party got back to Veragua. 
Eighty men landed with the idea of forming a 
settlement under Bartolome Colon. They had the 
good sense to act in the friendliest manner to the 
native chief ; but he was not the simple-minded 
creature that Guacanagari was, over in Haiti. 
He saw at once that they wanted gold, so he nodded 
obligingly, and indicated by signs that he would 
lead them to the gold mines. And he did; but 
they proved to be the small, worked-out mines of a 
neighboring chief who drove the intruders off. 
Back they went to the first chief's land and began to 
build a stockade. The first chief still appeared 
friendly enough, but a very clever young Spaniard 
named Diego Mendez happened to prowl through 
the undergrowth to the Indian village and saw 
the warriors sharpening their knives and making 
ready to attack the uninvited settlers. Off rushed 
Diego to tell Don Bartolome ; and he, believing 
that "the best defense is a sharp attack," rushed 
to the village, captured the chief and many 
warriors, and sent them captive aboard the waiting 
caravels. The chief, however, succeeded in jump- 



THE LAST VOYAGE 213 

ing over the side, diving to the bottom, and swim- 
ming ashore. 

It was then quite dark and none saw him come to 
the surface, but the next day he had another force 
ready to defy them. Of his fellow-prisoners who 
had been thrust into the hold, some managed to 
throw open a hatchway, overpower the guard, 
and likewise plunge into the sea. The sailors 
hurriedly pushed back the hatchway so that no 
more might climb out on deck ; but next morning 
it was discovered that all those who had not es- 
caped were dead. They had committed suicide 
rather than be carried off by the ruthless strangers. 

All this time there was such a rough sea that 
no small boats could get ashore from the caravels 
to obtain news of the eighty colonists under 
Bartolome. At last a sailor offered to swim to 
land ; when he came back, it was with the news 
that this settlement had gone the way of Isabella 
and San Domingo, for half its men had mutinied. 
The gold did not seem worth fighting for where 
natives were so hostile that a man could not even 
pick fruit from a tree and eat it ! Columbus saw 
that there was nothing to do but get the men 
back on the boats and abandon all thought of 
colonizing what he had already named Costa Rica 
(Rich Coast). 



214 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

But to carry out this decision for a while ap- 
peared impossible ; the waves were too high for 
any boat to venture out ; but at last the clever Diego 
Mendez, by lashing two canoes together into a sort 
of raft, got near enough to shore to rescue Don 
Bartolome and his men and stores. When Diego 
had succeeded in this perilous task, his Admiral 
was so grateful that, in the presence of all the 
men, he kissed him on both cheeks, a mark of great 
respect in those days. Ah, if only Christopher 
had found such a stanch, capable friend earlier in 
his career ! 

Ever since they reached the mainland Columbus 
had been suffering torments with rheumatism. 
Now to add to his agonies a fever attacked him. 
Along with these ills, and the murmurings of his 
hungry men, one of the ships was wrecked; and 
after they had rescued its men and provisions, and 
were about to find room for them on another ship, 
this other ship was discovered to be too worm-eaten 
and disabled to continue the voyage. Columbus, 
in all his pain, directed the removal of men and 
goods to the best two caravels. This done, he 
started for San Domingo, turning his back on his 
last chance to find the passage to India — the 
broad Pacific Ocean — if only he had crossed the 
isthmus between! 



CHAPTER XX 

The Courage of Diego Mendez 

At last they were clear of the most disastrous 
landing that Columbus had ever made. What 
you have read is but the bare sketch of a chapter 
in his life that was crowded thick with misfortunes 
and even horrors. And yet, strange to say, on 
this detestable coast is the only settlement in the 
New World that perpetuates the great discoverer's 
name, the town of Colon, at the Atlantic terminus 
of the Panama Canal. 

The Admiral's health was now ruined, for fevers, 
sleeplessness, gout, and eyestrain kept him in 
constant pain, and at times made even that strong 
mind of his a little queer and wobbly. But on one 
point at least it remained alert and lucid, — he 
still could think out his course clearly. With a 
view to avoiding the treacherous winds and coast- 
wise currents that had previously wrought such 
havoc with his ships, he set his rudders due east 
on leaving Veragua; his idea being to sail first 
east and then north to San Domingo. 

215 



216 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Straightway the crews became alarmed, thinking 
he meant to return direct to Spain, in spite of the 
fact that the ships were too rotten for the long 
trip. But no ; the Admiral hoped, besides escaping 
currents, to mystify them as to the geographical 
position of the gold coast. Remembering how 
Alonzo de Ojeda had gone back and reaped riches 
from the pearl coast, and how Pedro Nino, that 
captain who brought slaves to Cadiz and sent word 
that he had brought a cargo of gold, and also been 
to Paria, Christopher decided to zigzag about in 
such a manner that no one could ever find his way 
back to the gold country ten days inland from 
Darien. Suffering and misfortune were surely 
telling on the Admiral's mind, else he would never 
have written this childish note: "None of them 
[the crew] could explain whither I went nor whence 
I came; they did not know the way to return 
thither." 

But all the time his men grumbled, and could 
not understand why they were starting for Spain 
on crazy, crumbling ships, when San Domingo lay 
so much nearer. Every day they murmured 
louder, till at last the Admiral foolishly humored 
them by heading due north ; the result was that he 
turned too soon and found himself in a new current 
he had never met before. This current carried 



THE COURAGE OF DIEGO MENDEZ 217 

them past Hispaniola westward again to those 
same "Gardens of the Queen." The series of 
storms that here overtook the two battered little 
ships were almost as bad as those that met them 
on their last approach to Hispaniola. Anchors 
were lost and the men kept the ships from sinking 
only by the constant use of "three pumps and all 
their pots and kettles." By the 23d of June they 
had drifted over to Jamaica. The crews were 
worn out by their hard work to keep afloat. It 
seemed as if human endurance could stand no 
more. Many were badly bruised from being 
dashed down on the decks like bits of wood before 
the gales; they had had no dry clothing on for 
days; their hearts were faint, their stomachs 
fainter, for they had had nothing to eat and drink 
for some time but black wormy bread and vinegar. 
How, we ask ourselves as we sit in our comfortable, 
solid houses, did they endure it? And yet there 
was even worse to come ! 

The Admiral saw that even "three pumps and 
all their pots and kettles" could not keep the 
water bailed out of the leaky boats. The only 
thing he could do was to run his ships aground. 
The first harbor he tried was so barren on every 
side that starvation stared them in the face ; so 
they pushed on a little farther, the exhausted men 



218 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

again bailing steadily, till they entered a greener 
spot, now called Don Christopher's Cove. Not 
a minute too soon did they reach it. Once the 
ships were grounded on the sandy beach, the tide 
soon filled the hulls with water. The weary men 
had to turn to and build cabins on the forecastles ; 
and here at last they managed to keep dry, and to 
lie down and rest. 

Their first thought was how to get food. The 
resourceful Diego Mendez offered to tramp over 
the island and trade whatever personal articles the 
sailors had left for foodstuffs. In this he was 
successful ; he secured more than food ; he ex- 
changed the clothing on his own back for a large 
canoe and six rowers, and returned by sea. The 
next aid Mendez rendered the shipwrecked men 
showed even finer heroism than his lashing the 
canoes together to rescue Bartholomew. He of- 
fered to go in an open rowboat all the way from 
Jamaica to Haiti and ask Ovando to send a rescue 
vessel ! 

Look at a map of the West Indies and see what 
this offer meant ! Two hundred miles to the 
western point of Haiti, two hundred more to the 
governor at San Domingo, and this, too, across a 
sea frequented by perilous hurricanes. It was a 



THE COURAGE OF DIEGO MENDEZ 219 

magnificent piece of volunteer work ! Not one 
chance in a hundred did Diego Mendez have of 
reaching his destination, and he knew it; yet he 
offered to take the risk. One of his shipmates 
caught some of his valorous spirit and offered to 
accompany him ; and the six native rowers, of 
course, had no choice but to go. 

Mendez was as practical and ingenious as he was 
brave. He fastened weatherboards along the 
rim of the canoe to prevent shipping water; he 
fitted it with a mast and sail, and coated it with 
tar ; and while he was doing it the Admiral wrote 
a brief, businesslike letter to Ovando, telling of 
the sad plight they were in ; he also wrote a long, 
rambling letter, full of evidence of feeble-minded- 
ness, to the monarchs. These letters Mendez was 
to take with him. 

But Mendez, to every one's dismay, came back 
again in a few days, — came back alone and with 
boat and oars smashed. While waiting at the 
eastern point of Jamaica for a favorable wind to 
take them over to Haiti, they were surrounded 
by hostile natives and captured. The six rowers 
escaped, and the companion of Mendez was prob- 
ably killed instantly ; but while the savages were 
debating how to kill and cook Mendez, he managed 
to dash away, jump in his huge canoe, and push off ! 



220 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

The shipwrecked party felt crushed indeed. 
Their last hope of rescue was gone ; but no — Diego 
Mendez offered to start all over again, if only Don 
Bartolome would march with an armed force along 
the shore till there came a favorable moment in 
the weather for Diego to push across to Haiti. 

This precaution saved the intrepid Diego a 
second surprise from cannibals; but the passage, 
after leaving Jamaica, was torture. So intense 
was the heat, that he and his Indian rowers were 
forced to take turns jumping overboard and 
swimming alongside the canoe in order to cool off. 
The Indians, like children, wanted to drink all the 
water at once. In spite of warning, they emptied 
the kegs the second night, and then lay down on 
the bottom of the canoe, panting for more. Diego 
and his Spanish companion did the rowing till the 
Indians were rested a bit. Then Diego brought 
out two more kegs of water which he had artfully 
hidden under his seat, gave them all a drink, and 
set them to work again. Late that second night 
the moon came up, not out of the sea, but behind 
the jagged rock that lies ten miles off the western 
end of Haiti. Blessed sight ! What new courage 
it put into the tired rowers ; how eager they were 
to make the rock by sunrise so as to lie in its shade 
all that August day of 1503, instead of blistering 



THE COURAGE OF DIEGO MENDEZ 221 

under the torrid sun in an open boat. Surely, if 
ever men deserved to lie all day in the shade, it was 
these brave fellows who were trying to save Chris- 
topher Columbus. 

From this point Mendez went on with his six 
rowers till he found the governor ; but before 
going into that matter, let me tell you how proud, 
and justly proud, Diego Mendez was all his life of 
this canoe trip. He lived to be an old man (in the 
city of Valladolid) , and when he felt himself nearing 
the end, he asked his relatives to mark his grave by 
a tombstone, "in the center of which let a canoe be 
carved (which is a piece of wood hollowed out in 
which the Indians navigate), because in such a 
boat I navigated some three hundred leagues ; and 
let some letters be carved above it saying canoa." 

Quite right of you, Diego Mendez, to wish 
posterity to know of your plucky voyage. We 
hope your relatives gave you the coveted tomb- 
stone ; and we hope, also, that they carved, on its 
reverse side, that of all the men who ever served 
Don Cristobal Colon, you were the most loyal and 
the most valiant. 

The Admiral, in writing an account of what 
happened on the Jamaica beach while Mendez 
was seeking aid, says: — 



222 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

"At the request of the king's treasurer, I took 
two brothers with me to the Indies — one as 
captain, the other as auditor. Both were without 
any capacity for their work, yet became more and 
more vain. I forgave them many incivilities. 
They rebelled openly on Jamaica, at which I was 
as much astonished as if the sun should go black." 

Yet why, we ask, should Columbus have been 
so astonished? Had he ever known much else 
from those under him but incivility and rebellion ? 

Ever since Mendez left in August the men had 
been looking in vain for his return. Autumn and 
winter and spring wore away, and as the natives 
had grown tired of feeding them, the shipwrecked 
crew were now mere skeletons. Of course they 
blamed the pain-racked Admiral because Mendez 
had not returned with succor ; and of course they 
were constantly quarreling among themselves. 
One day the captain who had commanded the 
vessel that went to pieces near Darien came into 
the cabin where the sick Admiral lay, and grumbled 
and quarreled and said he was going to seize 
canoes from the Indians and make his way to 
Haiti. It was Francisco Porras, one of the two 
brothers foisted on Columbus by their relative, 
the king's treasurer, who wanted to get rid of 
them. 



THE COURAGE OF DIEGO MENDEZ 223 

Porras and forty-one of the discontented voyag- 
ers actually started for Haiti, but a short time on 
the rough sea sent them back ashore. They next 
formed themselves into a raiding party and out- 
raged the natives in every possible way, falsely 
saying that they did so by order of the Admiral. 
This so angered the Indians that they marched 
down to Don Christopher's Cove, surrounded the 
beached ships, and threatened to kill every Span- 
iard there. 

It so happened that there was to be an eclipse of 
the moon that night, and Columbus suddenly re- 
called it and turned the fact to good use. He told 
the angry natives that the power that had made 
the moon and the stars was very displeased with 
them and would prove it that very night by dark- 
ening the moon. The childish creatures decided 
to wait before attacking and see if the Admiral 
spoke the truth. When the eclipse really started, 
they became terrified and sent their chiefs to 
ask Columbus's pardon ; Columbus promptly de- 
clared that the light of the moon would return if 
the Indians would faithfully promise to treat the 
Spaniards kindly and supply them with food. The 
credulous creatures hastened to procure it; and 
as they brought it to the shore, the moon kindly 
emerged from the black shadow that had covered 



224 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

it. Result, the Indians believed Columbus to be 
a superior being and from that time on they fed 
him and his men well. This eclipse was on Feb- 
ruary 29, 1504. 

But even with plenty of food the months of 
waiting were long and dreary. Had the brave 
Diego Mendez gone to the bottom ? He must have 
perished, thought the Admiral, for surely if he had 
reached San Domingo alive even the harsh Com- 
endador Ovando could not have refused to send 
aid to stranded countrymen on a savage island ! 
But why not, good Admiral? Had not this same 
Ovando refused to let you enter the harbor of San 
Domingo last year when the frightful hurricane 
was gathering? 

Yet that was what happened. Ovando, whose 
heart, if he ever had one, had shriveled to the size 
of a mustard grain, practically refused to send 
help. On hearing Mendez' tale he said he was 
sorry for the Admiral and his men, but he did not 
say he would send them a ship. Mendez kept at 
him, telling him very emphatically that the one 
hundred and thirty stranded Spaniards would 
certainly die unless soon rescued ; still Ovando 
said he was sorry, but did not offer to send relief. 
Instead, scoundrel that he was, he did send a small 



THE COURAGE OF DIEGO MENDEZ 225 

caravel, very small indeed, so that it could not 
accommodate the forlorn men, and could not 
carry them any provisions. The captain, one of 
Roldan's rebels, was carefully instructed merely 
to see if Columbus and his shipmates were still 
alive, and then to come back and report. The 
Roldan rebel took his caravel to Don Cristopher's 
Cove, rowed out in a small trailer until within 
shouting distance of the two rotting hulks on the 
beach, and yelled out that Governor Ovando was 
very sorry to learn from Mendez that the Admiral 
and his party were in trouble, and regretted that 
he had no ship large enough to send to their rescue. 
And then the villain sailed back to his villainous 
master. 

Imagine this studied, impudent message to a 
group of men whose eyes had been straining for 
months to see a relief ship head their way ! Imag- 
ine sending such a message to the most illustrious 
discoverer the world has ever known ! A more 
dastardly bit of cruelty hardly exists in history ! 

This expedition was kept secret from Diego 
Mendez, however ; and Diego, still storming about 
because nothing was being done, went among the 
populace of San Domingo and declared that it was 
a base, shameful business to leave a sick old man 
to perish on a savage island, especially when that 
Q 



226 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

old man had discovered all these lands for Spain. 
The people, though many of them had been the 
sick old man's enemies in bygone days, and though 
they never suspected the greatness of Columbus, 
agreed. They even began to clamor that Colum- 
bus should be rescued ; but it was not until they 
had clamored long and urgently that their knightly 
governor sent a ship. 

On June 25, 1504, exactly one year after Colum- 
bus had beached his two remaining caravels, the 
relief ship came in sight. "Never in my life," 
wrote Christopher, "did I experience so joyful a 
day !" and we may well believe it. 

On the 15th of August the party reached San 
Domingo after their long suffering and hardships. 
Ovando, seeing how popular sympathy had turned 
towards the sick Admiral, decided to secure a little 
popular favor himself out of the incident by invit- 
ing the discoverer to stay in his own house, that is, 
the governor's house, which really had belonged 
to Columbus. There Columbus learned that the 
agent appointed to set aside his share of the island 
profits had not done so ; also, as Ovando wanted 
to punish Captain Porras, who had rebelled on 
Jamaica, while Columbus preferred to deal with 
the matter himself, host and guest disagreed. 



THE COURAGE OF DIEGO MENDEZ 227 

Too proud to remain an unwelcome guest in 
Ovando's house, Columbus collected what he could 
of the money due him, and prepared to go home 
to Spain. Two vessels were purchased, one for 
Bartholomew and one for Fernando and himself. 
Again Columbus proceeded with the familiar 
business of calking ships, buying provisions, and 
engaging a crew. In less than a month he was off 
again from San Domingo on the last voyage he 
was ever to make. On September 12, 1504, the 
ships weighed anchor and pointed away from the 
"western lands" which Christopher Columbus 
had made known to Europe. The white-haired 
old man, we may be sure, stood long on deck gaz- 
ing backward as the scene of his triumph and his 
humiliation faded from sight. Never again could 
he undertake a voyage of discovery, for he was 
now a confirmed invalid. Cipango, Cathay, and 
"the strait" to the Indian Ocean were not for 
him ; so it was with many a heartburn that his 
poor old eyes strained toward the fading islands. 

His ill luck held out to the end. The first day 
a sudden storm broke with a crash and carried 
away his masts. With the utmost difficulty he 
and Fernando got into a small boat and clambered 
on board Bartholomew's vessel, the disabled boat 
being sent back to San Domingo. Still the sea 



228 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

would show him no mercy. Hardly had he crawled 
into a berth than another tempest came, and 
another and another, one unending, pitiless fury 
all across the ocean, till our great man must have 
thought that old Atlantic hated him for having 
solved her mysteries. The ship appeared to leap 
and stagger every minute of the time, and the 
Admiral was too ill to take command. Bartholo- 
mew was doing his best and little Fernando was 
helping; running down to his father for orders, 
scurrying up to his uncle with directions. What 
a struggle for life it was ! And it was repeated 
every single day till November 7, when the crippled 
little caravel put into the harbor of San Lucar near 
Cadiz. Christopher Columbus's last voyage was 
over. No bells pealed out to greet him; no flags 
were flung to the breeze ; but at least he had the 
glory of knowing in his heart that he had conquered 
that grim, unknown, menacing Atlantic Ocean 
which man had feared since the beginning of time. 



CHAPTER XXI 

"Into Port" 

The merciless storm that had beaten Columbus 
across the ocean swept over Spain after he landed. 
He had gone as far north as Sevilla, intending to 
proceed from there to court, which was being held 
at Medina del Campo, in Old Castile ; but illness 
overcame him, and for three months he lay bed- 
ridden in the Sevillan monastery called Las Cuevas. 

Besides his rheumatism, and all the other ills 
that might arise from two and a half years of 
exposure and bad food, an event happened, a few 
days after his return to Spain, that crushed him 
utterly. This was the death of his best friend, 
the only one to whom he could look for securing 
his rights in "the Indies," where Ovando and other 
enemies had conspired to rob him of his share of 
profits in the colonies. The great Queen Isabella 
had passed away on November 26, 1504, in the 
lonely castle at Medina del Campo. In these two 
lives, though they had walked such different paths, 
there was much resemblance. The queen, like 
Columbus, had known a life of unceasing hard 
229 



230 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

work and anxiety ; like Columbus she had striven 
for a great purpose and had triumphed ; her pur- 
pose being the driving out of the Moor, and the 
establishment of Spain as a world power ; like 
Columbus, she had made mistakes, and like 
Columbus, she had known much sorrow. There 
was a strong bond of sympathy between these two, 
and the news of the queen's death was a great blow 
to the bedridden old man in Sevilla. 

Isabella had asked to be buried in Granada, the 
city she had labored so hard to win for Christianity, 
and from the day the little funeral party set out 
from Medina to the day they arrived at Granada, 
three weeks later, a frightful tempest raged that 
swept away bridges, flooded rivers, and made roads 
impassable. All the time poor Columbus, as he 
lay ill in the monastery, listened to the storm and 
thought of that mournful party tramping with 
their solemn burden down to the city where he 
and Isabella had both gained a victory. Maybe he 
envied the worker who had passed away first, for 
he sadly wrote to his son Diego, "Our tired lady 
now lies beyond the desires of this rough and 
wearisome world." 

But Columbus himself was not yet out of this 
"wearisome world," and was troubling his weary 



"INTO PORT" 231 

brain far too much about its petty details. From 
his fourth voyage he had returned much poorer than 
he ever expected to be at the end of his sea-going 
life. The little money he had been able to collect 
from his plantation in Espafiola had been used to 
equip the ships that brought him home, and to pay 
his sailors ; for this was a point on which he was 
always most scrupulous. When his ready money 
was thus used up, the good monks of Las Cuevas 
had to provide for his necessities until finally the 
banks advanced money on the strength of his 
claims against the Crown. After the death of 
Isabella these claims had small chance of being 
considered to his full satisfaction, for Ferdinand 
argued that the contract of Granada was, owing 
to the vast extent of the new lands, impossible for 
either the Crown on the one hand or Columbus on 
the other to fulfill. That rascally Porras, who had 
caused so much trouble during the Jamaica days, 
was at court, filling everybody's ears with slander- 
ous stories about the Admiral during the days 
when the Admiral himself was wearying Ferdinand 
with a constant stream of letters. Every day that 
he was able to sit up he wrote long appeals for 
"his rights" and his property. Not only did he 
present his claims for recognition and reward, but 
he told how badly things had been going in San 



232 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

Domingo under Ovando ; how the comendador 
was hated by all for his tyranny and for the favor- 
itism he showed ; and how things would soon come 
to a sorry pass in the colony unless a better gov- 
ernor were quickly appointed ; and then, poor man, 
deluded with the idea that he could set things 
right, he asked to be reinstated as governor ! 
Good Christopher ! can you not realize that your 
work is done now, for better or worse? Can you 
not let others solve the great problems across the 
ocean? Can you not see that you have been 
greatest of them all, and that nothing more is 
required of you? And as for all the dignities 
and titles and properties that should be yours, 
according to the Granada contract, we know you 
want them only to pass them on to your boy, 
Diego ; but never mind him ; you are leaving him 
a name that will grow greater and greater through 
the coming ages ; a name that is a magnificent 
inheritance for any child. 

About this time the sick man received a visit 
which brightened him a great deal, a visit from the 
man who, never intending any harm, was destined 
to soon assume the greatest honor which the world 
could have given Columbus — the honor of naming 
the newly discovered lands Columbia, instead of 
America. 



"INTO PORT" 233 

Americo Vespucci was an Italian from Florence 
who, in 1492 or 1493, came to Sevilla to carry on a 
commercial business. Here he learned of Colum- 
bus's first voyage and became eager to make a trip 
himself to the new lands. It was a Florentine 
friend of Americo's who fitted out Columbus's 
second expedition ; but this Florentine died before 
the vessels were ready, and Americo continued the 
work. More than this ; seeing, when the king 
canceled Columbus's monopoly, a chance for him- 
self to win glory, he hastened off with one of the 
new expeditions. He claimed that they reached 
a continental coast on June 16, 1497, which was 
earlier than Columbus had reached Para, and 
eight days before Cabot touched at the northern 
edge of the new continent. We have only Amer- 
ico's own account of the voyage, and his state- 
ments are so inaccurate that many students re- 
fuse to believe him the real discoverer of South 
America. 

Of Americo's second voyage, however, we have 
reliable information, for it was made in the com-r 
pany of Alonzo de Ojeda, that one-time friend of 
Columbus who later rebelled against him at Es- 
panola. Vespucci sent a letter to a friend in 
Florence describing his voyages and saying that 
the continent he had reached "ought to be consid- 



234 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

ered a new world because it had never before been 
seen by European eyes." His second letter, writ- 
ten from Portugal in September, 1504, to another 
friend, was used by Martin Waldseemiiller, a 
German professor who was then collecting all the 
information he could gather to make up a book on 
geography. 

Martin Waldseemiiller divided the globe into 
four large parts or continents — Europe, Asia, 
Africa, and the newly discovered fourth part, which 
he suggested "ought to be called America, because 
Americus discovered it." This professor, like 
most learned men of his time, wrote in Latin ; and 
in Latin the Italian name Americo is Americus ; 
the feminine form of Americus is America, which 
was used because it was customary to christen 
countries with feminine names. As nobody else 
had yet suggested a name for the vast new lands 
in the west, the German's christening of 1507 was 
adopted for the country which should have been 
called Columbia, in justice to the man who first 
had the splendid courage to sail to it across the 
untraveled waters and reveal its existence to 
Europe. Had Columbus lived to know that this 
was going to happen, it would have been one more 
grievance and one more act of ingratitude added 
to his already long list; but at the time that 



"INTO PORT" 235 

Americo Vespucci visited his countryman who 
lay ill in Sevilla, neither one of them was think- 
ing about a name for the far-away lands. They 
merely talked over their voyages as any two 
sailors might. As Vespucci was now looked up to 
as a practical, new-world traveler and trader, and 
the Admiral was lonely and forgotten, it shows a 
kind feeling on the visitor's part to have looked 
him up. When Americo left to go to court, Colum- 
bus gave him this letter to carry to Diego, who was 
still in the royal service : — 

My dear son : 

Within two days I have talked with Vespucci. He has 
always manifested a friendly disposition towards me. 
Fortune has not always favored him and in this he is not 
different from many others. He left me full of kindest 
purposes towards me and will do anything he can (at court) . 
I did not know what to tell him to do to help me, because 
I knew not why he had been called there. 

In February, 1505, a royal order was issued to 
the effect that Don Cristobal Colon be furnished 
with a mule to ride to court, then being held in 
Segovia. To ride a mule in those days necessitated 
a royal permit, for every Spaniard preferred mules 
to horses. The government hoped that horses 
would be in more general use if the use of mules 
was restricted. 



236 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

The Admiral's long rest with the monks of Las 
Cuevas had apparently improved his health, for, 
as this royal permit proves, he applied for a mule 
and went to Segovia ; from there, that same year, 
he followed the king to Salamanca and later to 
Valladolid. Segovia, Salamanca, Valladolid ! All 
bleak, harsh places in winter, and fiery hot ones 
in summer. Our poor Admiral left pleasant Sevilla 
and exposed his worn old body to icy blasts and 
burning suns all for naught; for, as Las Casas 
writes : — 

"The more he petitioned, the more the king was 
bland in avoiding any conclusion ; he hoped, by 
wearing out the patience of the Admiral, to in- 
duce him to accept some estates in Castile instead 
of his powers in the Indies ; but Columbus re- 
jected these offers with indignation." 

The Admiral could not be made to see that the 
Granada contract was impossible ; that Ferdinand 
had signed it only because he never expected the 
voyage, to be successful ; and that now, when men 
wer^e beginning to believe Americo's assertion that 
a whoje continent lay off in the west, it was pre- 
posterous that one family should hope to be its 
governor and viceroy and tq control its trade. No, 
Columbus could only go on reiterating that it was so 
written down in Granada, away back in April, 1492. 



"INTO PORT" 237 

So King Ferdinand merely shrugged his shoul- 
ders and referred the matter to a learned council 
who talked about it a long, long time, hoping 
the sick old man might meanwhile die ; and at last 
the sick, tired, troublesome old man obliged them, 
and left all the business of "shares" and "profits" 
for his son Diego to settle several years after by 
bringing suit against the Crown. Toward the end 
of 1505 and the beginning of 1506 the Admiral 
became very ill. He was in Valladolid, and he 
realized that he could travel no more ; so he secured 
for himself, or perhaps Diego secured for him, as 
comfortable a lodging as possible in a street now 
called the Calle Colon, and determined not to move 
about any more. We, accustomed to heat and a 
dozen other comforts in our dwellings, would not 
consider the house in the Calle Colon, with its cold 
stone floors and walls, a suitable place for a 
rheumatic, broken-down old man ; but it was the 
typical solid, substantial residence of its day ; and 
the only pity is that the city of Valladolid permitted 
it to be torn down a few years ago to make room for 
a row of flats. 

Even in icy Valladolid, winter with its discomfort 
comes to an end at last. One May day, when 
spring sunshine was warming up the stone chamber 
where the old Admiral lay, he called for a pen 



238 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

and put the last touches to his will. All the titles 
he still hoped to get back were for Diego ; and 
should Diego die without a son, Fernando was to 
be Admiral ; and if Fernando should have no son, 
the loyal brother Bartholomew, who had shared 
those horrible days of disappointment and disaster 
off in the Indies, was to be Admiral. (Brother 
Diego had no need of an inheritance, for he had be- 
come a monk.) Part of the moneys due Columbus, 
if ever collected, were to be spent on that long- 
dreamed-of Crusade to recover the Holy Sepulchre. 
His remains were to be taken out to San Domingo. 
These were a few of the instructions he left. 

The next day, May 20, 1506, came another 
whisper of springtide, and the faithful Diego 
Mendez, who "navigated three hundred leagues 
in a canoe," came to see him ; his sons, Diego and 
Fernando, too, and his brother Bartholomew ; and 
as the dim old eyes saw these affectionate faces 
bending over him, he counseled Diego always to 
love his younger brother Fernando, as he had al- 
ways loved Bartholomew; and Diego pressed his 
hand and promised. Then the old man rested 
quietly for a time. He was clad in the frock of a 
Franciscan monk, the same sort of frock that good 
Friar Juan Perez wore when he welcomed him to 
La Rabida. 



"INTO PORT" 239 

They opened the window to let in the May 
warmth, and Christopher sniffed feebly. Did he 
recall the beautiful climate of Haiti which he said 
was "like May in C6rdova"? Let us hope, at 
least, that it was peaceful recollections like this 
that flitted through his vanishing senses, and not 
recollections of the horrible hurricanes and insur- 
rections and shipwrecks and prisons that made up 
part of his eventful life. He made no sound, not 
even a whisper, so we will never know what thoughts 
the May warmth brought to him. We only know 
that after a while he crossed his hands peacefully 
on his breast and murmured, "Into thy hands, O 
Lord, I commit my spirit." A moment later and 
the great Admiral passed forth on his last voyage 
into the unknown. 

The event on May 20, 1506, passed unheeded. 
A life had ended whose results were more stupen- 
dous than those of any other human life ever lived. 
Yet Valladolid took no notice of Columbus's death ; 
neither did Spain. The nation was too busy 
watching the men who had practical plans for 
colonizing the new lands, and turning them into 
profit, to concern itself with the death of the one 
brave soul who had found the path. Indeed, 
Cristobal Colon was really forgotten before his 
death ; yet he was living on, as every great spirit 



240 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 

lives on, in the ambitions of the men who were 
endeavoring to push his work still further. When, 
a few years after his death, Balboa first saw the 
Pacific stretching far, far off to Asia, and when in 
another few years the whole globe had been cir- 
cumnavigated, from Spain back again to Spain, 
only then did the vastness of Columbus's discovery 
begin to be appreciated. Europe at last realized 
that, during all her centuries of civilization, when 
she had thought herself mistress of the world, she 
had in fact known but half of it. As this truth 
took shape in men's minds, the humble, forgotten 
Genoese began to come into his own. They saw 
that he had done more than risk his life on the 
western ocean ; he had sent a thrill through every 
brave, adventurous heart, and this at a moment 
of the world's development when such seed was 
sure to take root. Christopher Columbus, one of 
the greatest products of the Renaissance, had 
carried that Renaissance to a glorious climax. 



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The author has been chosen in each instance either 
because he is particularly interested in the subject of 
the biography or is connected with him by blood-ties 
and possessed, therefore, of valuable facts. Only 
those, however, who have shown that they have an 
appreciation of what makes really good juvenile lit- 
erature have been intrusted with a volume. The 
result is that the books are graphic, vivid reviews of 
the principal events in the careers of these makers of 
the nation. 

ROBERT E. LEE. By Bradley Gilman. 
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. By Rossiter Johnson. 
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. By E. Lawrence Dudley. 
ROBERT FULTON. By Alice C. Sutcliffe. 
WILLIAM PENN. By Rupert S. Holland. 
DAVY CROCKETT. By W. C. Sprague. 
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. By Mildred Stapley. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



NEW BOOKS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS 

The Kingdom of the Winding Road 

By CORNELIA MEIGS 

With illustrations in color and in black and white by Frances White 

Cloth, i2tno 

A fanciful story relating the experiences of a beggar as he 
travels the country over in his tattered red cloak and playing 
his penny flute — in reality a wonderful magical pipe. He 
always knows the best thing to be done and he comes to the 
aid of the hero when he is in the worst distress. In his own 
fashion he helps the bad and the good alike. The book is part 
fairy tale, part romance, part allegory, but always literature. 
In a very human way the beggar stands for the soundness and 
sweetness of life and there are lessons that may be drawn from 
his adventures. But whether one bothers with the moral and 
the metaphors or not, there is an inescapable charm to the 
narrative and an interest and appeal that increases the further 
one goes on the beggar's highway. 

A Maid of 76 

By ALDEN A. KNIPE and EMILIE B. KNIPE 

With illustrations by Mrs. Knipe 

Decorated cloth, i2tno 

The little heroine of this book is a girl of Revolutionary 
times, a patriot through and through, but whose family is loyal 
to the king. Out of the difficulties with which she finds her- 
self confronted and which she brings ultimately to a satisfac- 
tory conclusion the authors have made a most entertaining 
story. 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New Tork 



MACMILLAN'S JUVENILE LIBRARY 



Each volume, cloth, 12mo, $.50 



NEW VOLUMES 

The Fairy Queen and Her Knights 

By ALFRED J. CHURCH 

Peggy Stewart at School 

By GABRIELLE E. JACKSON 

The Little King 

By CHARLES MAJOR 
The Voyage of the Hoppergrass 

By EDMUND LESTER PEARSON 

Hero Tales of the Far North 

By JACOB RIIS 

Gray Lady and the Birds 

By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 

Tommy-Anne and the Three Hearts 

By MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 

Southern Soldier Stories 

By GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON 



The addition of these eight titles to the Juvenile Library increases the 
usefulness and broadens the scope of that popular series of books for 
younger readers. Each of these stories will be found good reading, 
reading of the kind which specialists in the study of child literature can 
heartily recommend. 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



The EverychilcTs Series 

Edited by Dr. JAMES H. VAN SICKLE 

Each volume, cloth, i2tno, illustrated, 40 cents 

The E very-child' s Series is a library of fiction and dramatics, 
science and information, literature and art for children. Its 
contents include a wide range of subject matter, which will 
broaden the child's interest in plays and games, fairy-tales 
and fables, nature study and geography, useful arts and indus- 
tries, biography and history, government and public service, 
myths and folk-lore, fine arts and literature. 
This series seeks not only to instruct the child with simplicity, 
charm, and wholesomeness, but to heighten his finer apprecia- 
tion of the beautiful, and to give him, along with keen enjoy- 
ment, the things of life that are interesting and valuable. 
The authors of the books of this series have been chosen for 
their special fitness to write books for children. To each 
author has been given the choice of topic and method of 
treatment. The result is that the books in the series are not 
only charming and enjoyable but intellectually satisfying to 
the child. 

The volumes are interesting and attractive in appearance. 
They are neatly and strongly bound in cloth with design in 
two colors. The type page is set leaded in large type with a 
wide margin. The illustrations are numerous and attractive 
and designed especially to represent the characters that appear 
in the story. 

The series is a splendid source of supplementary reading ma- 
terial. It consists of over a score of volumes. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New Tork 









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